Ty tells you how each NBA team can win the title: Celtics, Raptors, & Wizards

I really like the NBA, but I love playoff caliber basketball.

A new week is upon us and that means we are back to my NBA countdown. We got our first playoff team at the end of last week, but this week, it's all playoff teams, ending on Friday with my number one overall team and my pick for the Finals, MVP of the season, Coach of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year. Let's get on with numbers 15, 14 and 13.

Coming in at number 15, we have the team that surprised me the most last season, the Boston Celtics. I was shocked and impressed how well they played the second half of last season. They finished with one of the best, if not the best, record after the All Star break and made the playoffs. They got swept out of the first round by the Cavs, but the fact they made the playoffs was a big surprise. I really like their coach, Brad Stevens, and I think he's on his way to becoming one of the best coaches in all of basketball. Their roster leaves much to be desired, but it's playoff caliber, especially in the East. Isiah Thomas is a great player. I like how fiercely competitive he plays and he's a threat to put up 40 on any given night. His back court mates are good, not great, at one specific skill. Avery Bradley is an elite defender and guards the oppositions best scorer every game. He is not that good of an offensive player though. Marcus Smart is also a very good defender, he was exceptional in college, but he's also lacking on offense. That puts all the pressure on Thomas to score and while he may be up to it, it won't happen night after night. Drafting RJ Hunter was a good move by the Celtics because this kid can flat out score. I didn't know much of him until the NCAA tournament last season, but when I watched him play, he made shot after shot. He has the tools to be a good bench scorer in the NBA. Evan Turner is a bust in every sense of the word. He can't score, he can't rebound and he gets dunked on with consistency. He's not that good of an NBA player. The frontcourt is just okay. Jared Sullinger is fine, but he's too small to guard fives and too slow to guard fours. Kelly Olynyk plays out of control. He hasn't brought the three point shooter and post scoring he had in college to the NBA, and his play on Kevin Love in the first round of the playoffs was dirty. There's no middle ground on it, it was flat out dirty, he meant to hurt Love. Tyler Zeller may be a fine NBA player, but I don't know, not a big enough sampling. They signed Jae Crowder and traded for David Lee and Perry Jones this offseason. Jae Crowder is a good big man that does the dirty work in the NBA. He rebounds, plays post defense and doesn't care about stats, only wins. I like Crowder to supplant Olynyk in the starting lineup by midseason. David Lee was, at one point, an All Star. He definitely helped the Warriors win a title, but he hasn't been an impact player in the NBA in a couple of seasons. His best days are behind him. Perry Jones is an enigma. He has loads of potential, but he couldn't get off the bench in OKC, and when he did get playing time, he didn't produce. He may be good, and getting out of OKC will be best for him, but we will have to see how he does with an expanded role. The rest of the roster is young and unproven. The Celtics will win anywhere from 42 to 45 games and are a lock for the playoffs.

How the Celtics can win it all.

The Celtics will win the title if, Thomas becomes an All Star, that may happen, RJ Hunter becomes a 20 point per game scorer, that won't happen and the frontcourt plays way beyond expectations. The Celtics are getting back to good basketball, but they still need a couple of years before they are on the same level with the elite teams from the East.

My number 14 team is the Toronto Raptors. this team is sliding back. They're still good enough to be the fifth or sixth team in the East, but they seem to get a little worse every year. Their roster is full of talent, but it doesn't seem to come together to put this team in the top of the East. Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan are two of the best young guards in the league, but DeRozan can't seem to stay healthy for a full season, and Lowry finally showed up this offseason in shape, but that should've happened last year when he signed his big extension. Jonas Valanciunas has been an okay player, but he hasn't lived up to the hype surrounding him when he was drafted. He looks afraid to take big shots or come up with big rebounds of defensive plays. He shies away from the big moment. James Johnson and Patrick Patterson are fine players, but they're nothing to write home about. They don't really affect the game too much. They did a lot this offseason, but it seems like too much and a bit desperate. DeMarre Carroll is a pretty decent NBA player, he proved that last year with the Hawks, but he's not worth the money the Raptors gave him. Corey Joseph finally gets his shot to play after spending his first couple of seasons on the Spurs bench, and he's looked good in the preseason, but is that smoke and mirrors, or a sign of things to come? Also, will he really steal minutes from DeRozan and Lowry? I don't think so. They signed Anthony Bennett after the Timberwolves bought him out, and while it may be nice for him to play in his home town, he's from Toronto, we are talking about one of the biggest, if not the biggest, busts of all time in the draft. I really like their pick of Delon Wright in the most recent draft. In fact, I think that was their best offseason move. The Raptors have gotten better every year under DeWayne Casey, but they seem to fall apart at critical and crucial times. Toronto seems like a 45 or 46 win team to me, good for the sixth spot in the East.

How the Raptors can win  it all.

The Raptors will win the title if DeRozan can stay healthy all season and play at an extremely high rate, Lowry and Valanciunas play to the level of their contract, DeMarre Carroll proves he's not a one season wonder and the supporting cast plays much, much better than expected. The Raptors stink of a team that will start hot, fade late and shit the bed in the playoffs, basically what they've done the past two years.

My number 13 team is also from the East, the Washington Wizards. I really like the Wizards, but I just don't think they have enough talent on their roster to be better than fourth or fifth in the East, probably fifth. Now, the starters are where all the talent lies. John Wall is one of the best point guards in all of basketball (what would Colin Cowherd say?). He's the fastest basketball player I've ever seen, he lays really good defense, finds the open man all the time and is becoming a pretty good shooter. Bradley Beal is one of the best young scorers. Otto Porter JR is going to have a huge season. He's been on the verge of breaking out, and I think that happens this season. He will finally live up to being the third overall pick. Nene Hilario is one of my favorite players to watch. He's a throwback in every season of the word. He plays awesome defense, rebounds at a very high rate, has excellent post moves and does all the dirty work. Marcin Gortat is a good scorer, and he pairs well with Nene in the frontcourt. Gortat is a scorer and Nene does everything else. The bench is the problem for me. First of all, they lost Paul Pierce. While he's a million years old, he hit big shot after big shot and gave this team a swagger they didn't have before. The Wizards will miss him. The bench has guys like Drew Gooden, DaJuan Blair, Kris Humphries and Ramon Sessions. Not world beaters and past their primes, if they had one. I do like their pick of Kelly Oubre JR. He's another one and done, and who knows with these kids, but being on a veteran team and not having to have an immediate impact will benefit him. He's going to be good. The Wizards will win close to 50 games, probably 48 and be the fifth seed in the East.

How the Wizards can win it all.

The Wizards will win the title if the starters can play all 48 minutes in every regular season game and playoff game and not have to rely on their bench. The starters are great, but the bench is very weak and will be their undoing. Another second round exit is in the cards for the Wizards.

So, there's my 15, 14 and 13 ranked teams. Tomorrow we get into the top 10 and things will become very interesting.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. His NBA League Pass is mostly for the OKC Thunder, but he enjoys some low tier eastern conference playoff teams. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik

Ty tells you how each NBA team could win the title: Pistons, Mavericks, & Jazz

I love the NBA, and I really love playoff caliber basketball.

Continuing my NBA countdown, I'll be giving you teams 18, 17 and 16. Today we get our first playoff team. This team will actually replace a team from last seasons playoffs. The three teams I'll be talking about today are right on the verge, or missed their window. They have decent enough rosters, but are just on the outside of the playoffs, with one exception. My first playoff team may surprise you, but that's the fun of making preseason predictions. On with the countdown.

Coming in at number 18 is the Detroit Pistons. There are things I really like about this team, but there's just as much that I dislike. They might surprise, but probably not. First, the dislikes. For one, they completely over paid to keep Reggie Jackson. Being an Oklahoma City fan, I watched Jackson grow into a quality NBA starter, but I also saw how he reacted when he didn't get his way. One year, he'd have a huge impact during OKC's playoff runs, but last season, with Durant and Westbrook out for extended periods of time, he did not respond to the challenge. Instead of being the leader they needed, he became a ball hog, so far as to veterans icing him out and not passing him the ball. He then complained that he wasn't getting the touches or minutes he thought he deserved when Westbrook returned, and basically demanded a trade. His wish was granted much to my delight. Now, GM Stan Van Gundy gave him a max contract and that's insane. He's not a max player, and if he doesn't get his way, he'll openly complain. Another reason the contract baffles me is, the Pistons have a much better point guard in Brandon Jennings. I know he's coming off a torn ACL, but he's ten times the player Reggie Jackson is. He's also a lefty, and lefties are very tough to guard. Jennings can shoot okay enough, and he's really good at finding the open man. Unfortunately, for him and the Pistons, I think he's trade bait since they gave Jackson so much money. Some team will greatly benefit if Jennings is traded, and the Pistons will suffer. I'd take Jennings over Jackson 10 times out of 10.Now, a player I like. Andre Drummond is a good big man to have, but his front court mate, Greg Monroe, left and signed with Milwaukee. That will be tough on Drummond. Drummond is a great rebounder and defender though, and he may strive being the focal point of the Pistons half court offense. They drafted Stanley Johnson, who I like a lot, but he's only 19 or 20 years old. He's another one and done, and it takes time for these guys to develop before they become a true threat. Besides Marcus Morris, who I think is a really good, really underrated player, they "beefed" up their bench with guys like Steve Blake, way too old, Danny Granger, way too old and oft injured, Aaron Baynes, won't succeed outside of the Spurs organization and Ersan Ilyasova, just not that good of an NBA player. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a good shooter, but he hasn't figured out the NBA game just yet. The overpaying of Reggie Jackson and signing or trading for veterans that are ten years past their prime make the Pistons a 35 to 37 win team. That may get you in the playoffs in the East, but probably not.

How the Pistons will win it all.

The Pistons will win the title if Reggie Jackson and Brandon Jennings find a way to mesh together and play high level basketball, that won't happen, they both think they're alphas, but only one of them is(Jennings), Drummond becomes a 20 point a game scorer, Stanley Johnson becomes a key contributor right away and the old vets find the fountain of youth and play like they did in their primes. Sorry Detroit, that's not happening.

Number 17 on my list is the Dallas Mavericks. What a crummy, terrible, horrible, asinine way to lose your top free agent this summer. I wrote about how cowardly this all made DeAndre Jordan look, and it was a huge blow to the Mavericks hopes of making the playoffs. Now, as I wrote in my piece, Jordan wouldn't have made them an NBA championship contender, but he would've kept them in the playoffs at least. I feel bad for Dirk Nowitzki as well. How many other legitimate superstars have left as much money on the table to help the team get better. Nowitzki will go down as one of the best big men shooters of all time, but the end of his career is going to be tough because the Mavericks aren't going to be as good as they've been lately. Not only did they miss out on DeAndre Jordan, but they let Tyson Chandler walk without trying to sign him, Monta Ellis left in free agency and their "big" offseason additions were Wes Matthews, coming off a torn ACL, Deron Williams, who hasn't been an impact player in about 6 years and JaVale McGee, who is the most out of control player in all of basketball. Go google some JaVale McGee "highlights" and watch with amazement at how absurd some of the stuff he does is. They still have Chandler Parsons, but is he truly a quality starter in the NBA? I haven't seen it since his third year in Houston, and he gets injured all the time. He may have been a one season wonder. Devin Harris is still around, but all he's any good for anymore is shooting the three. JJ Barea is still there, but he's just getting older and older. Samuel Dalembert may end up being a good defensive center, but he will not help this team on offense. I want to touch on the Wes Matthews signing again for a minute. They ended up giving him a max contract after the whole DeAndre Jordan thing, and while that was a poor decision, Wes Matthews is a really good NBA player. He led the league in three point percentage last year. That's right, Wes Matthews and not Steph Curry hit threes at the highest rate. He also plays excellent defense. He is a very, very good basketball player. The Mavericks are going to step back this season. The question is, how far of a slide back will they take? Will they be a mid 30 win team, or will they tank? I'd guess they will end up in the mid 30 win column. Dirk has too much pride to give up at this point in his career and Wes Matthews will want to show people he's worth the big contract. Unfortunately, the rest of the roster is average.

How the Mavericks will win it all.

The Mavericks will win the title if they can get the Steve Nash from ten years ago to come back and play for them, Dirk finds the fountain of youth, Matthews becomes an MVP candidate, Parsons proves he's not a one season wonder and the bench highly exceeds expectations. This will be a rough year for the Mavericks, Mark Cuban and, most importantly, Dirk. They will struggle in the West and Dirk may call it quits after this season. We will have to wait and see.

Finally, my first playoff team. Coming in at number 16 is the Utah Jazz. I thought that I'd never say this, but Quinn Snyder may be a competent coach (ed note: That sentence makes me angry). He has a young team that's buying into playing team basketball and being stout on defense. Gordon Hayward is becoming a really good NBA player. He's playing like a max contract guy and I didn't expect that. He looks likes he's going to be good for a long time. Trey Burke has had a rough start to his young career, but the Jazz have tempered that problem by drafting Dante Exum last season. He got hurt, but he's a 6'6 point guard, and he looks to be really good. Burke is more of a bench player anyway, but it pains me to say that because he was a star when he played for Michigan, and you all know I'm a huge Michigan fan, both football and basketball. Derrick Favors is a pretty good NBA player and forward. He's a good post player and very good rebounder. Alec Burks is quietly becoming a pretty good scorer in the NBA. He's instant offense for the Jazz. Rodney Hood is a lefty sharp shooter, and he's playing good basketball right now in his young career. Rudy Gobert is an upgrade from Enes Kanter, especially on defense. He's not the scorer that Kanter was, but his imposing presence in the post made it an easy decision for the Jazz to trade Kanter to OKC last season. The issue with the Jazz is the rest of their bench. They took a shot, it may end up working out for them, by drafting Trey Lyles in the lottery this past draft. He barely saw the floor in his one season at Kentucky, and no one knows how good he really is. He has a ton of potential, but he's extremely raw. He is the definition of a prospect. And, other than Hood and Trevor Booker, the rest of the bench is question marks. Is Jeff Withey really worthy of an NBA roster spot? Trevor Booker is okay, but will he take the next step? The rest of the bench, literally, who are these guys? I don't know much about them. Like I said, the Jazz will make the playoffs, taking the Mavericks spot from last season, in the hyper competitive West, but they will get swept out of the first round. They will win either 44 or 45 games this season.

How the Jazz will win it all.

The Jazz will win the title, now they're the first team in my countdown that has a "shot" simply because they will be in the playoffs, if they catch fire at the exact right time and run off a series of monumental upsets. They will be the eight seed in the West and they will have to go through a murderers row of opponents. That won't happen this year. they'll be a nice story and Jazz basketball is on it's way back, but they're not elite. Not yet.

So, there are my 18, 17 and 16 teams in the NBA. Come back next week and we will get into the upper echelon of teams in the NBA. All the teams next week will be playoff teams and you will get my Finals prediction and my pick to win the Finals next Friday.

It will feel good to write about teams that are actually good.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. We all watch sports here at SeedSing, but Ty is the only one that really knows what he is talking about. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

The Government is Keeping Us off of Mars

This is the only rocket NASA can afford.

Do you know who Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornieko are?

Do you know who Alan Shepard and Yuri Gagarin are? (I really hope you do.)

What about Neil Armstrong, does his name ring a bell?

How about Mark Watney, I am going to assume you have heard of him?

According to my basic internet / personal polling research most people know that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Yuri Gagarin was the first person in space, Alan Shepard was the first American in space, and Mark Watney is a fictional character who is stranded on Mars. Most people have no idea who Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornieko are, and that is a huge shame. 

Astronaut Kelly and Cosmonaut Kornieko are just past the half way point of a year long mission on board the International Space Station. One of the goals of this mission is to determine what prolonged time in space does to the human body. Kelly and Kornieko volunteered to be human guinea pigs in our quest to travel farther into space, first stop Mars. Read all about their amazing mission here.

Andy Weir's sci-fi novel The Martian (and the recent Ridley Scott Film based on the book) tell the story of Mark Watney and how he survives on Mars when he is accidentally left behind (read this book, it is outstanding). The story is filled with real scientific scenarios based on the ideas we have about the hospitality of Mars.  The realism of the book help make it, and the movie, a huge hit. It is not out of the realm of possibility to think that we could make a manned mission to Mars in the near future. There are still some very large issues to figure out, like how are we going to stop our Mars explorers from being cooked alive by radiation. We are working to figure out these problems, and the first human steps on a different planet are forthcoming. Humanity is on the verge if interplanetary travel.

The biggest leap of faith in Weir's book is the idea that NASA is well funded enough to support the cost of manned Mars missions. Americans always seem excited about the possibility of space travel, yet our government never has the will to commit money to the endeavor. The budget to run all of NASA in 2015 was approximately $885 million. The US congress has spent $5 million (and counting) on their admitted politically motivated Benghazi committee.  The US house has spent northwards of $75 million trying to repeal Obamacare. The pointless never ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost at least $4 trillion, and that does not account for the medical care returning veterans will require. There have been billions of unaccounted for money the US has distributed all over Iraq and Afghanistan. A manned mission to Mars is estimated to cost around $100 billion. The point is that our government balks at the price tag for manned space exploration, yet they have no problem wasting money on politically motivated pet issues and other forms of fraud. The latest tea party hero, Jim Jordan of Ohio, costs the taxpayers around $120 million every year so his district can continue to manufacture tanks that the Army does not want. The fiscal conservatives halt NASA and our future, yet waste untold amounts of money on things that do not advance humanity.

Our government's lack of investment in space exploration contributes to the public's dismissive attitude about current space explorers. What Gagarin and Shepard did was dangerous and unknown. What Armstrong did was dangerous and inspiring. What Kelly, Kornieko, and all current space travelers do is dangerous and vital to our future. Mark Watney is more well known because The Martian is a great book, and the hero represents our hopes for what a future of interplanetary travel will look like. Weir's hero is dependent on what NASA has done, and will do. Our future on Mars has its genesis in what Kelly and Kornieko are doing on the International Space Station. We will get excited about Mars when we have heroes to root for. Our current astronauts are these heroes. They should be celebrated at least as much as a fictional character.

A manned mission to Mars is inspiring and necessary. People are flocking to read, and see, The Martian because it inspires hope and pride in humanity. The scientific discoveries made through the space programming are staggering. When President Kennedy told us we had ten years to land on the moon, the technology did not exist. Nine years later we landed on the moon and started a new computer revolution. We do not have the technology to walk on Mars, yet. When a strong leader emerges in our government, and we are challenged as a nation to rise up, we will see humans walk on Mars within our lifetimes. What great technical revolution will follow? Astronaut Mike Kelly and Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornieko are getting us ready to travel beyond the moon. Their work is paving the way for a future Mark Watney. We deserve to experience the awe and pride of interplanetary travel. We deserve a government that believes in the future.

Thanks to NASA.gov and Space.com for their help in my research. Seriously go read The Martian.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is wondering if Valentine Micheal Smith is waiting for us on Mars. Join the conversation by writing for SeedSing.

Ty tells you how each NBA team can win the title: Magic, Pacers, & Hornets

I love basketball.

Continuing my NBA countdown, today you'll be getting my number 21, 20 and 19 teams. We are just on the outside of the playoffs. These teams are okay, have been good recently but are in a downswing or they are rising, but there just not a playoff team yet. I like these teams, but they're a year or two away, or past their prime. On with the countdown.

My number 21 team is the Orlando Magic. I really like what they are doing in Orlando right now. They are building a strong, youthful team that's full of potential. They drafted my favorite player from last years draft, Elfrid Payton. First of all, he has the best hairdo in the league, but aside from that, he's a really good, really young point guard. He's going to be a star in this league and he will continue to get better and better. Victor Oladipo is a fantastic defender and he's one of the most athletic players I've seen in a long time. He may have been the best overall player in his draft class from three years ago. Nikola Vucevic looks like a really strong player. He made a huge leap last season and he should continue to get better each season. Aaron Gordon is extremely athletic, but he needs to stay healthy if he wants to become a consistent starter in the NBA. They resigned Tobias Harris last season after many, many teams tried to get him. I think he's one of the most underrated players in basketball. He's an all around great player. He's more than just a scorer now. They drafted foreign prospect Mario Herzonja, and while I don't know how good of a player he is, he's extremely confident in himself and his abilities. That's half the battle. The problem with the Magic is their bench. It's pretty thin, filled with unproven players. Guys like Shabazz Napier and CJ Watson and Evan Fournier have shown me very little in their early careers. Everyone else on the bench is average at best. They have a decent, but very young roster. They remind me a lot of the Timberwolves. They'll struggle to win 30 games this year, but if they stay together, this team will be really good in three years.

How the Magic will win it all.

The Magic will win the title if every single player takes a huge step forward and become All NBA caliber players. That won't happen this season, but Oladipo and Payton are destined to be stars. Give them three years.

My number 20 team is the Indiana Pacers. Yes, the same team that was in the east finals two years ago. They really struggled without Paul George for almost all of last season. Their roster is pretty thin as well, with a lot of cast offs from other NBA teams. George Hill is s good point guard, but he's not an All Star and he's only getting older. Paul George is back and he's a top 20 NBA player. The only problem, they'll regret playing him at the four this season, and that won't work for him on defense. Fours are too big and strong for him to guard. They'll beat him up. He'll get his on offense, but defense will punish him. They signed Monta Ellis, but I feel like his best days are behind him. He doesn't really care to play defense. Usually a rookie wouldn't be an upgrade, but Myles Turner, right now, is a better player than Roy Hibbert. That sentiment would have been crazy two years ago, but Hibbert is pretty rough to watch now a days. I think Turner can be a competent center in about three or four years. He does run awkwardly, but he has decent post skills and can rebound and be a rim protector. Their bench, with the exceptions of Jordan Hill and Rodney Stuckey, is either rookies or second and third year players, aka, my buzzword, unproven. I do like Stuckey and Hill though. Stuckey is instant offense and Hill is a good player that got out of LA(he was a Laker) so he can blossom. The Pacers are destined to take a step back. I see 34 or 35 wins this season and they will win ugly.

How the Pacers will win it all.

The Pacers will win the title if George is somehow, some way, able to handle fours on defense, George Hill plays the best basketball of his life, Myles Turner becomes all NBA defense and averages double figures, Monta Ellis contributes on both ends and Stuckey and Hill become starter quality players. I like their roster, but all that stuff isn't happening. Sorry Pacer fans. How they handle this season and offseason will say a lot about the direction the Pacers are going in.

My number 19 team is the Charlotte Hornets. With the injury to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist you may think 19 is too high, but that injury, in my opinion, doesn't change too much about this team. MKG will be hard to replace though, that's for sure. He was definitely coming into his own and his injury will be a tough pill to swallow for the Hornets. The rest of the roster is decent, but not great. They also drafted Frank Kaminsky way too early. He has bust written all over him. Another poor GM decision by Michael Jordan. Kemba Walker is an All Star in waiting. I love the intensity and passion he plays with. He's a really good basketball player. Walker is almost good enough to make the MKG injury a moot point. Almost. Al Jefferson is a good big man that's finally getting the credit he deserves. He plays the game with a mix of old and new school moves. He's an awesome basketball player. He should be a perennial All Star. They traded for Nic Batum before the draft, but I don't know how he fits. He's a good shooter, but there's no Damien Lillard to help take the pressure off. Kemba Walker is good, like I said before, but he's not on Lillard's level yet. They also traded for Jeremy Lamb, who couldn't get off the bench in Oklahoma City and signed Jeremy Lin. I think it's fair and reasonable to stop the hype on Jeremy Lin. He hasn't been very good since he left the Knicks, and he was only good for about 25 games with the Knicks. I like Jeremy Lin the person, I love the pranks he plays on people, but I don't like Jeremy Lin the basketball player. He's not that good. PJ Hairston has a lot of promise, but he can't seem to stay out of trouble. His problems will doom his career. The rest of the roster is not very good. You're grasping for straws if your ninth player off the bench is Tyler Hansborough and your tenth player is rookie Aaron Harrison. Hansborough was a college star, but his game doesn't translate to the NBA and he's an extremely dirty player. Harrison regressed in his sophomore year of college and I don't see him getting much better in the pros. The Hornets may flirt with a .500 record, but are more likely to win 35 games.

How the Hornets will win it all.

The Hornets will win the title if MKG has a miraculous recovery, Walker scores 40 points a game, Jeremy Lin finds the form he had during "Linsanity" and plays like that all season and Nic Batum becomes an All Star. Al Jefferson will be great because he's a great player, but he's in a similar situation as Boogie Cousins. At least Jefferson has a teammate almost as good as him in Kemba Walker.

So, there you have it, teams 21, 20 and 19. Come back tomorrow for teams 18, 17 and 16. We get our first playoff team tomorrow.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He enjoys writing about basketball, but is looking forward to writing about good basketball. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Greatest American Band Debate: The Not So Greatest Bands of Today

For the Greatest American Band debate, I'm not nominating anyone today, I'm going to tell you why I think a lot of the bands out there today, that are played on the radio will not be in this conversation.

These bands don't have the staying power that a lot of the bands myself, RD and Tina have written about. I know I wrote Sugarhill Gang and how they are a one hit wonder, but they invented a genre of music. These bands today aren't inventing anything, they are strictly one hit wonders, or bubble gum pop. Now, I do like some current bands a lot. I've written about the Black Keys for this very debate. I'm a huge fan of TV on the Radio and I will be writing about them in the near future for this debate. I'm a huge Odd Future fan. I think they're the new Wu Tang Clan. The problem is, these bands don't get much, if any, radio play. Their music isn't catchy enough, or it's too weird for the masses. I've had a problem with pop music, I've written about the current state of radio on this site before, pretty much my whole life. When I was in high school, while I was listening to Outkast and Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, my friends and girlfriends were listening to shit like N'Sync, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. These people and "bands" will never be mentioned in any debate involving good music ever. They are ear worms. They're a hazard to people who listen to them, and the fans are some of the most annoying people in the world. They act like crazed religious people when talking about this music. It's not sufficient enough for them when I say I don't like this music. They have to not only berate me for not liking the music, but tell me why I'm wrong. And before you say it, I'm not telling you that you have to listen to the bands I like or have mentioned, I'm just telling you why pop music isn't sustainable, especially what they play on the radio. Do any of you millennials really think that Backstreet Boys or N'Sync is going to be Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees?

I didn't think so.

I have this same feeling for current pop "stars' like Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus and George Ezra. You read that and said, "those are all solo artists, they don't count", okay, here's some current bands that will never be in this conversation, Imagine Dragons, OneRepublic and EchoSmith. As far as the solo artists go, Taylor Swift is annoying. I don't know if she's a country musician, or a pop musician. It's pop, right? She's a terrible role model as well. She may not want to be a role model, but she is. Her music all sounds the same, especially the garbage she's currently putting out. Miley Cyrus is terrible in every way. She's an abysmal singer, a terrible dancer, a bad actor and a shitty person. She's the worst. George Ezra was cool when he first came out, but he's doomed to be a one hit wonder. His sound is too weird, and the fact that "Budapest" became a hit is completely shocking to me. People will only remember him for that one song. The "rock" bands that they play on the radio today are just as bad. Imagine Dragons are America's version of Nickelback. They might not be as terrible as Nickelback, but it's pretty close. They are more worried about their image than their music. They are a band of haircuts that play absolutely unlistenable music. First of all, their songs do literally all sound the same. They are all horrible rock songs. They want to sound like The Black Keys mixed with pop music, but it doesn't work for them at all. When they were on SNL last year, first of all, they sounded bad and when they brought Kendrick Lamar on to perform their second song, even he couldn't save how terrible it was. I love Kendrick Lamar, and when he can't make you song mildly enjoyable, you have a problem. OneRepublic sounds like the crappiest version of a Christian rock band, and Christian rock music is terrible. Their song, "Counting Stars" is so bad, that when it's on the radio, I'd rather listen to the band Train, and I hate Train. They are also a bunch of dudes that seem more interested in their look rather than their music. If these bands put a quarter the effort into their music that they do their look, they might be decent, probably not, but maybe. OneRepublic is a hazard to your ears. Avoid listening to them at all costs. EchoSmith is a brother sister combo, I believe, but their music sounds like love songs to each other. It's creepy. I don't like the way they sing to each other. It's like Donny and Marie Osmond. Go back and watch the old SNL skit where Julia Louis Dreyfuss and some male cast member, I don't remember who (ed note: it was Gary Kroeger), play the Osmonds, and they're singing so sweetly to each other, they start to make out. That's what I fear with EchoSmith.

I'm just fed up with today's music I suppose. But, these bands will never be remembered for making great music, or even decent music. They will become trivia questions at companies trivia nights. Their sound has no staying power. They will never, ever be mentioned in the Greatest American Band Debate, except for today, and I'm trashing them. In ten to fifteen years from now, I won't come back to this topic and talk about any of these bands. So, what does this say about American music and radio right now? I guess, if I had to give an answer I'd say, that we are in a bad place right now with "pop" music. We don't have any CCR's or Talking Heads or Sugarhill Gang's to listen to and that's a shame. Step your game up pop bands and start making better music.

Please.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. Every morning he turns on his radio and has hope. Within in 5 minutes his hope is replaced with dread. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty tells you how each NBA team can win the title: Timberwolves, Suns, & Kings

I love basketball.

Continuing my NBA countdown, today I will be giving you my number 24,23, and 22 teams. We are getting to teams that are just on the outside of a playoff push. These teams are either too young, or have veterans that are too old. They may have been in the playoffs recently, but haven't been in awhile. They are still in the lottery, but in the later half of the lottery. Hell, the Heat picked in the late lottery last season. These teams are one or two players away from becoming competitive.

My number 24 team is the Minnesota Timberwolves. Yes, they had the worst record in the NBA last season, but they were fun to watch at times. They have young players throughout their entire roster. First, they traded Kevin Love last season to the Cavs in exchange for Anthony Bennett, who they just bought out, and Andrew Wiggins. Wiggins was excellent as a rookie. He showed his lock down defensive ability last season, and he found a jump shot midway through the season and he can jump out of the gym. He's probably my favorite young player to watch. Zach Lavine is a mystery to me. He has incredible hops, but can he shoot the ball? Can he play strong defense? Is he ready to take the next step? I don't know, but he's in year three, so he's either going to take a step forward, or slide back. Ricky Rubio cannot shoot the ball, doesn't want to either, but he's a wizard passing the ball. He plays out of control sometimes, and he seems to be on the trading block every year. Nikola Pecovic is not living up to his big contract. I think he's the only player on the Timberwolves that misses Kevin Love. He's been a disappointment. I think their first pick, and overall number one in the 2015 draft, Karl Anthony-Towns can slide into Pecovic's place. It's going to take time for him to develop because he's so young, but he has the look of a perennial All Star. The bench is okay, but nothing to write home about. Shabazz Muhammed has surprised me with how well he's adjusted to the pro game. He looked like a head case in college and part of his rookie year, but something must have clicked for him, and he looks like a decent bench player in the NBA. Unfortunately, for himself and the Timberwolves, they start him out of necessity. They also have Gorgui Dieng and Kevin Garnett come off the bench. Dieng was expected to make a leap last year, but it never really came together for him. He seemed nervous being the focal point of the second unit. I love Kevin Garnett, and him being back with the Timberwolves is strictly nostalgic, but he should've retired three years ago. He's going to be an excellent coach. Other than that, it's slim picking for the Timberwolves. This team is way too young to fight for any playoff spot, but give them three more years, they could be a powerhouse.

How the Timberwolves will win it all.

The Timberwolves will win the title if Wiggins becomes the elite player he will be in three years this season, Lavine becomes more than just a dunker, Pecovic regains his form from two seasons ago, and plays ten times better than that and Karl Anthony-Towns is an immediate All Star. That's not happening. The Timberwolves will be improved, but they will only get somewhere in the 20 win column. They'll be fun to watch, but give them time, about three years, they'll be legitimate playoff contenders.

My number 23 team is the Phoenix Suns. This is another team that seems to be falling apart at the seams, a la the Denver Nuggets. They were legit playoff contenders the last year and a half, but quit midway through last season. They had way too many point guards and traded Goran Dragic and Isiah Thomas for little to nothing. They did get Brandon Knight out of these trades, but I feel like they overpaid him this offseason. Who knows if he'll live up to that contract. They did sign Tyson Chandler, but that was in hopes of luring LaMarcus Aldridge, and that obviously didn't happen. Chandler is good, but who will throw him the alley oops he needs? Not Eric Bledsoe or Archie Goodwin. Bledsoe needs the ball in his hands at all times to be effective. He's really good, but not franchise player good. Archie Goodwin is young and inexperienced. He's a one and done kid, from Kentucky, so who knows what his future in the NBA holds. They did draft Devin Booker, another one and done from Kentucky, who looks to be a lock down perimeter shooter, but what else can he do? And he's not going to take shooting guard minutes away from Brandon Knight. Alex Len hasn't panned out like they hoped. He was the big man of the future, but he's been a disappointment so far. He can't guard any fives, and gets beat up by most when they're guarding him. They completely botched the Marcus Morris trade to the Pistons, pissing off his twin, Markieff in the process. I don't believe his talk of being happy now, after claiming he'd never suit up for the Suns again this summer. Other than these guys, the bench is another group of question marks. I don't understand what management is trying to do with this team. Are they going to try and make the playoffs, or are they going to tank? Who knows, but management hasn't made many good decisions the last half of this year.

How the Suns will win it all.

The Suns will win the title if Bledsoe gets the whole team involved, Knight becomes the star that they hope he will be, Tyson Chandler gets a time machine and goes back to his form during his first go around with the Mavericks, Alex Len suddenly becomes good at basketball and Booker hits 70% of his threes. They also need to trade Marcus Morris to achieve any success. The Suns are a 32 or 33 win team at best. Management needs to get their act together before this team is highly competitive again.

My number 22 team is the Sacramento Kings. Talk about a problem at the top. First of all, the coach, George Karl, doesn't like the star player, and one of the best centers in all of the NBA, DeMarcus Cousins. Their owner is out of his mind, going so far as to suggest playing 4 on 5 defense so they'll always be running fast breaks because it worked for his child's little league basketball team. And players can't wait to get out of there. They did sign Rajon Rondo, but he's not elite anymore, and he's a tough teammate. He's an extremely smart player and expects everyone on the court to be as smart as him. That's not happening, a lot of his new teammates are really athletic, and that's how they play the game, they use their athleticism. They drafted Wille Cauley-Stein number seven overall. That's way too high for a guy that only plays defense. He has no offensive ability. Ben McLemore and Rudy Gay are fine players, but not thriving within this offense. They also have Darren Collison, but what are they doing with two starting point guards. You can't play them at the same time, that won't work. They also signed Seth Curry, Steph's little brother, but he may have just been a summer league star. Who knows. The rest of the roster is not good, but not terrible. All this being said, they do have Boogie Cousins. He's a legitimate MVP candidate, and if he get his head on straight, who knows what this team's ceiling is. Unfortunately, I don't think that's happening with this team, especially after all the offseason drama. The Kings are going to win in the mid thirties once again.

How the Kings will win it all.

The Kings will win the title if Cousins becomes the newer, younger , better version of Shaq. It's possible people. They also need McLemore to continue to get better and for Rudy Gay to become a veteran leader. Cauley-Stein would have to become a double digit scorer, not happening, he's so bad at offense and Rajon Rondo somehow, some way returns to his Celtic days. That's a tall, tall order. Cousins is so good, but this team isn't ready to make the leap, especially in the West. It's just too tough. But, things can get better in Sacramento, Boogie Cousins just has to be the dominant force that he's capable of being.

There you have it, teams 24, 23 and 22. Come back tomorrow for 21, 20, 19. We are starting to get to the better teams in the NBA.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He doubled up his dependents today and all wish him the best. I said he could take a break, but NBA rankings keep him sane. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty tells you how each NBA team can win the title: Knicks, Nuggets, & Nets

I love NBA basketball.

Another day, another basketball preview. Today I will give you my next three teams. These teams are better than the 76ers, Lakers and Trail Blazers, but not by that much. They're a step up, but they're still going to be picking in the lottery in next year's draft.

My number 27 team is the New York Knicks. The Knicks are this low you're asking me? Absolutely. Sure, they have Carmelo Anthony, one of the most overrated "superstars" in the NBA today. Sure, Phil Jackson is running the show as the GM now. Sure they had a lottery pick, they took Kristpas Porzingis, and who knows with him. He's either the new Dirk Nowitzki, or in his GM's terms, the next Shawn Bradley. There's no middle ground for Porzingis. Time will tell how well of a GM Phil Jackson truly is. I don't think he's done a good job so far, but he is a basketball genius, so he may know something we don't know. But, you trade away Iman Shumpert and JR Smith and the team gets worse? How in the hell does that happen? They didn't get much of anything in return as well. Bad move by Phil Jackson. Carmelo Anthony is a shell of the player he was in Denver and his first couple seasons in New York. He gets hurt constantly, argues with the front office, i.e. takes a max contract from the Knicks and now, according to rumors, he wants to be traded to the Bulls who tried really hard to get him last offseason and he has ZERO interest in passing the ball, or playing defense. He fought so much with Tim Hardaway Jr last season, they traded Hardaway to the Hawks for next to nothing just to make Anthony happy. At this point in his career, he's a worse version of Kobe Bryant. Instead of leading and helping this team, he bitches and complains. It's never his fault, it's everyone else around him. He's past his prime, and he's never been to the Finals in his career. Do you remember when he and LeBron James were rookies and people actually thought that Anthony may be a better pro than James? You were all wrong. James is ten times the player that Anthony is on his best day. The rest of their roster is pretty weak. They signed Aaron Affalo this offseason to an eight million dollar contract. That's crazy. Affalo is a good defender, but that's it. He is not the player he was with the Nuggets and he is only getting older. They signed Robin Lopez, and while he's a good NBA center, he is not the answer for the Knicks. They have the aging corpse of Jose Calderon and they signed Derrick Williams. You don't remember him? He was a lottery pick four years ago and he couldn't find the court in Minnesota or Sacramento. He will struggle in New York. Langston Galloway was a "pleasant" surprise. He looks like he could end up being a good bench player in his career. But, the Knicks start him. Other than that, there's really not much to like about the Knicks and I don't like much about who I mentioned. They're a 26 or 27 win team, at best, this year.

How the Knicks will win it all.

They will win the title if Carmelo finds his form from 8 years ago, Porzingis becomes a beast immediately, Affalo travels back in time to 5 years ago and Derrick Williams suddenly becomes an All Star. That's not happening. This team is a mess and they will be for the next two or three years.

My number 26 team is the Denver Nuggets. What in the world happened to this team? They were in the playoffs two years ago and had one of the best home court advantages in all of the NBA. Then, out of nowhere, they imploded. They've traded away a ton of good players, fired a decent coach and gave up midway through last season. During last year they traded away Aaron Affalo, Timofey Mozgov and Ty Lawson. They did have Lawson all of last season, but when they drafted Emmanuel Mudiay, the writing was on the wall. They have likable NBA players, guys like Kenneth Faried, Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. They also drafted Mudiay, and I like him a lot. I think he's going to end up being a really good NBA point guard. Kenneth Faried is a hustle and rebounding machine. This guy goes 100mph and plays with reckless abandon. Wilson Chandler is long and rangy, he's a solid defender and a pretty good three point shooter. And Gallinari, if he can stay healthy, is a good all around player. But, these guys don't mesh well together. When they play, it's like a mishmash of solid players and not so solid players. It doesn't help that everyone one of these guys, Mudiay being the exception, is always on the trading block. It's hard to play hard for a team that is always in discussions to trade you. There's some good young talent, but those guys aren't ready yet. The veterans are too old and they can't help in any phase of the game. This team signed Mike Miller for Christ sakes. He hasn't been helpful in 8 years.

How the Nuggets will win it all.

The Nuggets will win the Finals if Mudiay becomes elite immediately, not happening, Faried becomes not only a rebounding machine, but a 25 point per game player, not happening, Chandler and Gallinari put in 60 combined points a night, not happening, and Mike Miller and Gary Harris come off the bench with some instant offense, not happening. This team is too far behind almost every team in the West, minus the Lakers and Trail Blazers, and they will need some time to get back to where they were two years ago. Sorry Nuggets fans, you'll be lucky to win 30 games this season.

My number 25 team is the Brooklyn Nets. They were in the playoffs last year, barely, and they got worse in the offseason. Sure, they bought out Deron Williams, who hasn't been good in five years, but they replaced him with Jarret Jack and Shane Larkin. Those two are hardly world beaters. Larkin is inexperienced and Jack, when the Warriors traded him, they got immediately better. Joe Johnson clearly doesn't want to be on this team anymore but, his contract is so bad, no one will trade for him. He's stuck. They resigned Brook Lopez, but he's a foot injury waiting to happen. The guy can barely stay on the court as it is, and now the Nets just gave him big money.  They signed Andrea Bargnani and Thomas Robinson this offseason. Those are two lottery busts. Bargnani has been on four different teams now, and Robinson can't seem to find the court on any team he's been with. They drafted Ryan Boatright, and while he was a great college scorer, he'll find it to be much tougher sledding in the NBA. Rondae-Hollis Jefferson, their other draft pick may be good, but I don't have a big enough sampling since he was a one and done player from Arizona. The rest of the roster is filled with question marks. It's gotten so weird with their crazy owner recently, that NBA TV showed him running drills in camp, and these drills were asinine. Go look it up on Google, it's insane.

How the Nets will win it all.

The Nets will win the title if everyone, including Joe Johnson, buys into this crazy owner, believes their own hype and somehow wins games they shouldn't. That won't happen. As I said before, their best player, Joe Johnson, doesn't want to be there, Brook Lopez is one foot injury away from being done for good and everyone else on the roster is unproven. The Nets are a 30 win team. No ifs ands or buts about it. So, there are my 27, 26 and 25 teams for you. Come back tomorrow for 24, 23, and 22.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is enjoying one more day of one kid and one money. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty tells you how each NBA team can win the title: 76ers, Lakers, & Trailblazers

I love the NBA.

So, for the next two weeks, I'm going to do an NBA season preview. There's 30 teams in the NBA and I will select three teams a day and point out why they won't win the title, and why they just might. I will rank these teams from worst to best, in my personal opinion. Not to worry, I will keep up with some other blogs, like Greatest American Bands and Irrational Hatred for Sports Teams, but this NBA preview will be my prime focus for the next two weeks. I'm also going to be a dad for the second time in two days, so these blogs may seem a little bit shorter, but they'll be packed with pertinent information. Everything will be as informative as before, but the NBA will take up the majority of my time, as well as the new baby, and will be the focus of my blogs. So, on with teams 30, 29, 28.

First, number 30. They've been the worst team in the NBA for the past three years, you may have read my previous blog about how they're the worst run franchise in all of professional sports, the Philadelphia 76ers. The 76ers roster reads like the exact difference of a who's who. They do have some players that could be decent, but this is a team of "potential". I put that in quotes because, when they get a player that looks like a decent NBA player with potential, a la KJ McDaniels or Michael Carter Williams, they trade him for "assets". That means draft picks. They've had top three picks the last couple of years and taken players like Nerlens Noel, he looks like he can be decent, but only on the defensive side of the ball, he plays zero offense unless it's a put back dunk. Two years ago they took Joel Embiid, and he has yet to play a single NBA game due to two different foot surgeries. This past season they drafted Jahlil Okafor and while he's a beast on offense, he doesn't play defense, so far as to not even hustle back because he's out of shape. Other potential starters include Tony Wroten, Nik Stauskas and Isaiah Canaan. Wroten is okay, but he's a bowling ball that looks out of control 90% of the time. Stauskas cannot play defense on the NBA level, and he hasn't shown his ability to drive to the basket like he did in college, he's relegated himself to being a corner three shooter. And Canaan is a great fantasy pickup only because he shoots almost 25 times a game. He puts up useless points for a team that's going nowhere. The rest of the roster is filled with has beens and never was players. This team is going to be bad once again. They'll be lucky to win 20 games.

How the 76ers will win it all.

I did say I'd give a reason that each team could win the title, so here goes for the 76ers. They will win the title if Daryl Dawkins and Moses Malone rise up from their graves and Charles Barkley goes back in time to his twenties, and they'd still be hard pressed to make the playoffs, let alone win the title. The 76ers are an embarrassment to the NBA and basketball in general. They stink.

My number 29 team is the Los Angeles Lakers. This is a team that thinks it's still the early 2000's. They don't shoot the three because their coach says it won't win games, they play no defense because they want to be a fast break team, but they don't have the horses to run fast breaks, and they're still led by Kobe Bryant. Sure, he's one of the greatest scorers of all time, but he doesn't pass the ball, he plays no defense, and instead of helping this young roster, what a veteran of his caliber should do, he berates them and calls them soft. His contract has crippled this team too. Not only that, but his attitude as well. They tried and tried to lure big time free agents, most notably LaMarcus Aldridge, but they all balked at the Lakers offer because they didn't like the "direction" of the team. They also questioned their leadership. If that's not attacking Bryant, I don't know what is. You may say, but they signed Lou Williams and traded for Roy Hibbert and Brandon Bass. So what is my response to that. First of all, there's only one basketball being used during game play and they have three guys that want to shoot 30 times each in Kobe Bryant, Nick Young and Lou Williams. Roy Hibbert hasn't been good in three years. The Lakers got him five years too late. And Brandon Bass, he couldn't crack the Celtics starting five. They have a really good, young player in Jordan Clarkson, but until Bryant either retires or goes to another team, he won't be able to develop his game, Bryant won't allow that. Julius Randle can become a very good player, but he won't get enough touches in the post, and he's coming off a horrific leg injury. D'Angelo Russell may end up being a good point guard, but he only played one year of college basketball and he disappeared at times. He didn't look too great in the summer league games either. But, he's young and will grow after Bryant leaves. The rest of the roster is either young, or veterans with little NBA playing time or experience. Until Kobe Bryant leaves, the Lakers will be, at best, a 25 win team.

How the Lakers will win it all

The only way this team has a shot at the Finals or even the playoffs is if everyone on every team in the West gets hurt and they have to bring in players from the developmental league. The Lakers are only slightly better than the 76ers and I never thought that two of the NBA's most distinguished franchises would be this bad this early in the 21st century. Like I said, Kobe is crippling this team with his contract, his need to shoot the ball and his unwillingness to help out the younger players. They will be bad until Kobe leaves.

My number 28 team is the Portland Trail Blazers. This team may have had the worst offseason of any team in recent NBA history. First, the night before the draft, they traded Nic Batum to the Hornets for two young, inexperienced players. Then, Wes Matthews and Brook Lopez signed with different teams, Matthews to the Mavericks and Lopez to the Knicks. They did some good in retaining Damien Lillard with a max contract, but their efforts to retain LaMarcus Aldridge were not good. No one expected him to resign with Portland, and of course, he didn't. I'll talk about his new team at some point next week. The Trail Blazers lost four of their five starters from a playoff team. That's brutal. They did retain Lillard, like I said, and he's a really good offensive player. He's unguardable at times and can put up close to 50 points any night. His weakness lies on defense. His weakness is, he doesn't care to play defense. He shows no effort and they didn't need him to with guys like Lopez and Aldridge clogging the lane. Now though, he's the franchise, and they need him to do All Star work on both offense and defense. A lot will be asked of Lillard, and while he may live up to expectations, who else do they have? Guys like Meyers Leonard, Mason Plumlee and Noah Vonleh don't make up the greatest front court in basketball. Meyers Leonard is an okay offensive player, but for a 7 footer, he's a pretty crummy defender and rebounder. Plumlee is sub par at offense and defense. The fact that this guy made a USA basketball team is laughable. And is he supposed to be Brook Lopez's replacement? I'd take Lopez any day over Plumlee, any day. Vonleh may be good, but he's a young, unproven player. One year of college basketball and one year spent mostly injured or on the bench in Charlotte does not make for a good start to your professional basketball career. Time will tell with Vonleh. The new back court consists of Lillard and younger, unproven players. Guys like CJ McCollum and Phil Pressey and Gerald Henderson will try to help Lillard out, but it won't work. Phil Pressey had little to nothing to do with the Celtics run to the playoffs last year, and he just doesn't seem like an NBA player to me. Gerald Henderson is a great dunker, a decent shooter and an average three point shooter, but he doesn't play defense. Damien Lillard is the better version of Henderson. I don't understand the signing of Henderson since he's a worse version of Lillard, but I'm not a GM. CJ McCollum has the tools to be a good NBA player, but he needs more time to develop and he won't help this team that much right now. In three years a back court of Lillard and McCollum could be great, but will the Trail Blazers have the patience? I don't think so. They did sign Al Farouq-Aminu, in what might be quietly one of the better offseason signings, but he seems to only thrive when he's a role player. We will see how well he plays as a starter.

How the Trailblazers will win it all.

As I said before, every other player is too young or past their prime. It was a very, very rough offseason for Portland. The only way they win the Finals is if Damien Lillard averages close to 60 points a game, McCollum becomes an elite point guard in one season, and the front court of Aminu/Leonard/Plumlee/Vonleh all become All Stars. Does that sound totally possible? It doesn't? No duh. Portland should go into full rebuild mode and try to get this team ready to be good again in about three years. They did the right thing in locking up Lillard, but they didn't put up much of a fight for Aldridge and lost three other starters and didn't get much to replace them. Portland seems like a 25 to 30 win team at best.

So, those are the first three NBA teams. Come back tomorrow for numbers 27, 26 and 25.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is looking forward to watching some west coast basketball this season while he is up with a crying baby. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Once Again Let's Talk about how Guns Kill People

Guns kill people

ed note: These are the thoughts of the head editor and do not reflect all of SeedSing. We believe in giving everyone a voice and welcome any respectful dissent.

It is hard to come up with a coherent thought about the latest mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Instead of reacting in the moment I decided to sit back a few days and digest all of the news coming out of this latest tragic mass killing. We immediately learned the name of the killer, and then a few days later we started to get the names of the victims. Motives for the killer were immediately identified, even if these motives did not have a lot of facts to back them up. Many in the professional media, and non-professional social media universe, grabbed onto any excuse to describe why the United States once again had to deal with another horrible mass shooting. Since the tragic event, we all keep yelling about why this keeps happening. Do you want to know the number one reason this keeps happening? The answer is right in front of us after each mass killing. These horrible events keep happening in the United States because it is ridiculously easy for nearly anyone to get deadly firearms in this country. The express purpose of these easily obtained weapons is to kill. Guns kill people.

The right wing, the incompetent professional media, and the cowardly national government all want to find some other excuse for firearm deaths. These groups want to shift the blame away from the obvious culprit each and every time. Everyone is so afraid of hurting the feelings of a vocal, uninformed, and greedy group of people who worship the false idol that is the NRA. This is not about gun owners, it is about keeping a small group of rich white men in a position of influence. I am pretty damn tired of talking about the monsters in the NRA. These evil people will continue to use the deaths of innocents in order to push their dangerous agenda, and that will never change. What I am frustrated with is how as a society we constantly fall into the NRA's trap of defending guns over the lives of innocent Americans. We keep forgetting that guns kill people.

We have been conditioned to react to any horrible shooting by not talking about guns. This is the NRA's greatest victory. The media, and our elected officials, always look for another boogeyman.

The people were killed with a gun because of video games.

The people were killed with a gun because of social isolation.

The people were killed with a gun because of racism.

The people were killed with a gun because of mental illness.

The people were killed with a gun because of gun free zones.

Do you see the only common factor in these shootings? The reason to kill changes, the tool to kill is always the same. Yet somehow guns are the one thing that is off limits in our conversation. Monsters all have their own, largely unique, reasons to kill. All of the monsters use easily obtained firearms to do these killings. Why will we not talk about how guns kill people?

The latest mass killing in Oregon showed how the right wingers create victims out of guns. Almost immediately after the news broke, the right wing decided it was a war on Christians. Once again they screamed out about poor white christian victim-hood. When that story was still being debated, the right wingers took to social media and blamed the deaths on the fact the school was a gun free zone. This was once again proven as being a lie (guns are allowed on campus in Oregon, there was even a concealed carry holder on campus). This does not stop the right wing from perpetuating their gun free zone lie. Go ahead and google "Oregon shooting gun free zone" and you will see a long list of conservative commentators still pushing this lie. The national press was negligent in correcting this flat out lie, and the gunners got the misdirection they wanted. Like the many other shootings before, the Umpqua tragedy was being hijacked by flat out lies. The truth always destroy's the gunners narrative. Why can we not accept the truth? The lies have once again stopped us in talking about how guns kill people.

Why do we allow these lies? Why do we sacrifice our own safety so these rich white men can get even richer? Why do we choose to accept their lies and embrace our fear? Do we blame all the usual suspects? The press is a broken institution that only cares about wealth. The idea of journalism is long gone. In order to be fair and balanced, the professional media has decided that their wealth is more important than their integrity. They will not talk about how guns kill people.  Our government has no interest in representing the nation. Democrats and Republicans alike only care about the money. The Republicans will never do anything to address gun violence, and the Democrats use these black swan events to look good at a press conference. Why did Nancy Pelosi not convene a special committee on gun violence when she was Speaker of the House? Cowardice, that is why. They will never talk about how guns kill people.

My biggest question is once again why do we as Americans accept the lies of the pro gun community? Sandy Hook is an elementary school, Columbine is a high school, Virginia Tech is a university, and Umpqua is a  community college. These are not war zones, they are places every single one of us has been to. Our children are at these institutions right now. We cannot accept that places of education are dangerous. We cannot send our loved ones into harms way. Our institutions of education are off limits, our public gatherings are off limits, our military bases are off limits, our newscasts are off limits, our livelihoods are off limits. Guns make our lives more dangerous, we can not accept them in places we all live our regular lives. I want to be safe, I want my family to be safe. We can not accept the lies that a world of more guns makes us safe. I will not accept it. Guns kill people.

I myself rushed to judgement on this tragedy. The line of thinking present after all mass shootings is that "it is too early to politicize the event". Once President Obama says anything about gun control, self serving amoral beings like Mike Huckabee are quick to use this tired line. The right wing was giddy on twitter about the religious story of the shooting. Many people were already blaming islam. I started a little twitter conversation based on the idea that the right wing was allowing a discussion to be had, because they started the discussion. At one point I posted this tweet

It looks like the killer is white. So sorry #rightwing. Where will your blame point to next? I blame the #guns. #UCCShooting

— SeedSing (@seedsingrdk) October 2, 2015

Do you know what is wrong with that tweet? The response to the tweets inaccuracy was quite swift. I had many many people immediately correct me to say that the killer was mixed race. My part of the debate was invalid because I made a mistake, I did not tell the truth. That was the problem, I was wrong about the race of the killer. I was not wrong about the guns. The right wing used my mistake to once again redirect the conversation away from the guns. The one truth in my tweet was buried because the pro-gunners need to use others mistakes to redirect the conversation away from the gun.  I accept my mistake, when will we accept that the problem is not race. The problem is that guns kill people.

Lucero Alcarez deserves the truth. Quinn Glen Cooper deserves the truth. Kim Saltmarsh Dietz deserves the truth. Lucas Eibel deserves the truth. Jason Dale Johnson deserves the truth. Lawerence Levine deserves the truth. Sarena Dawn Moore deserves the truth. Treven Taylor Anspach deserves the truth. Rebecka Ann Carnes deserves the truth. The injured deserve the truth. Stop accepting the lies and embrace the truth.

Guns kill people.

RD Kulik

RD is the founder and head editor at SeedSing. 

Get all your Postseason Winners with Ty's First Annual Baseball Playoff Preview

Is this the next year Cubs fans have been waiting for?

Today marks the weekend when regular season baseball ends, AKA when I start to pay attention to major league baseball.

All the playoff spots are filled with the exception of the second wild card in the AL. The Angels and the Astros will take that down to the wire. Other than those two teams, in the AL, we have the division winners, the Blue Jays, the Rangers and the Royals. The Yankees have claimed the first wild card spot. In the NL, all the playoff spots are filled. The division winners are the Cardinals, the Dodgers and the Mets. The two wild card spots are filled by the Cubs and the Pirates. I know people love baseball, but let's be serious, it doesn't really get exciting until now (ed note: Wrong, it is great all year). This is the playoffs.

Up until now, we've had 162 regular season games. That's a ton of games. During the summer I'll occasionally watch Cardinals games because it's my team. I don't watch any other teams play regular season games unless they're playing the Cardinals. Now that Fall is here, football is back and baseball definitely takes the back burner, until now. Football is and always will be my number one, I'll watch every Michigan and Green Bay game, but I will watch playoff baseball, and I'll watch every team in the playoffs. Baseball is finally exciting because it's down to only 10 teams, and two of those teams are out after one game. That's exciting. So, today I'm going to give a playoff preview and predictions. This will become a yearly thing. The one time each year that I watch baseball, I'll write a blog the weekend prior to the playoffs starting with predictions.

So begins my first annual "Baseball Playoff Preview". Since I'm a Cardinals fan and have watched NL baseball most of my life, I'm going to start with the AL and save the NL for last. So on with my AL preview and predictions. I'll start with the "play in" wild card game. The Yankees claimed the first wild card spot last night, and I'm going to say that the Astros complete the meltdown, lose the second wild card spot, and the Angels will end up playing the Yankees. I think the Yankees will win the game, but both of these teams are underachievers. They both have huge stars and huge payrolls, but they barely make the playoffs, if they even do. Tanaka will outpitch Weaver and the Yankees will advance to face the Royals. That means that I think the Royals will finish with the best record in the AL. I think they will do just enough this weekend to surpass the Blue Jays for the top spot. So the division series in the AL will be Yankees-Royals and Blue Jays-Rangers. These are best of five series. In the Yankees-Royals series, I have the Royals winning in five games, but they will all be close. The Royals have better pitching and hitting and even though their closer is out for the rest of the season, their bullpen is the best in the AL. The Royals are better coached as well. Royals advance to the ALCS. In the other division series, I'm taking the Blue Jays in four. The Rangers will get one game, but the Blue Jays are the hottest team in baseball right now, they have the AL MVP in Josh Donaldson, and the Cy Young winner in David Price. I know awards aren't handed out until after the playoffs, but those two are winning those awards. The Blue Jays also have Jose Bautista to crush homers and two great starters to compliment Price in Mark Buerhle and RA Dickey. The Rangers had a nice run at the end of the season, but their run is over. The Blue Jays are a buzz saw and they will crush the Rangers. Blue Jays advance to face the Royals in the ALCS. The ALCS is best of seven, but for all the reasons I just mentioned above for the Blue Jays is why this will be a short series. The Blue Jays win in 5 games. Once again, the Royals will get one at home, but the Blue Jays are playing way too well for anyone in the AL to stop them right now. They're just way too good. They made the best move at the deadline to acquire Price and Troy Tulowitzki, and that will pay off with a trip to the World Series. Blue Jays will represent the AL in the 2015 World Series.

Now, the NL. In the "play in" wild card game we get Cubs-Pirates. This one game may be better than any series in the AL. The NL Central boasts the three best teams in baseball(the Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates). If anyone of these teams were in any other division, they'd easily be champs and avoid this "play in" wild card game. I'm going to pick the Cubs strictly because they will have Jake Arrieta on the mound, and he may be the best pitcher in all of baseball right now. The game will be close and very low scoring, but the Cubs will manage 2 runs and walk away with a 2-0 win. This makes the division series, Cardinals-Cubs and Mets-Dodgers. In the Mets-Dodgers series, we will get to see some great pitching matchups. Most pro teams have one ace and then four decent starters. The Mets and Dodgers have two aces each, and great pitchers to fill out the rotation. The Dodgers will throw Greinke and Kershaw in the first two games, but the Mets will counter with De Grom and Harvey. This will be a close, low scoring series and due to their choking in the playoffs as of the past couple of seasons, I'm picking the Mets to beat the Dodgers in five. Kershaw always seems to have a meltdown in the playoffs and the Dodgers can't recover. That will happen once again, and people will start to question if Kershaw can ever win a ring. Mets advance to the NLCS. In what will probably be the most competitive series in all the playoffs, we get Cubs-Cardinals. The Cubs have big time pitchers in Arrieta and Jon Lester and boast a pretty talented, very young lineup. The Cardinals are the Cardinals, plus they get Adam Wainwright back as a relief pitcher just in time for the playoffs. They've had injury after injury, but they still have the best record in all of baseball, winning 100 plus games. This will be close as well, but I have the Cardinals winning in five games. The Cubs are about one or two years away and the Cardinals are stacked with veterans and they have the best bullpen in all of baseball. Their pitching staff is pretty great. Cardinals advance to face the Mets in the NLCS. So we have Mets-Cardinals playing to go to the World Series, what is this, the 80's? Both teams are good, but I have the Cardinals, I know, I'm a homer advancing to the World Series, beating the Mets in seven. I wanted to pick the Mets, but the decision to almost shut down Harvey because of an innings limit, ask the Nationals how that worked for them and Strasburg, will bite them in the ass in the NLCS. It will still go the full seven, but the Cardinals will find a way to advance, it's what they do.

So the 2015 World Series will be the Blue Jays and Cardinals. This one will only go five games, and the Blue Jays will be the 2015 World Series Champions. They're the best team in baseball now, with the best player in the AL and one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. The Cardinals injuries will catch up to them, and as I said before, the Blue Jays are a buzz saw. They're the most talented team that's playing the best baseball since the franchise's peak in the 90's. The moves made at the deadline will once again pay off, this time with baseball's largest prize. David Price will win two games in the World Series for the Blue Jays and he will be the best player in all of the 2015 playoffs and take home World Series MVP.

So, there you have it, the Blue Jays will be your 2015 World Series Champs.

(ed picks: ALCS will be Blue Jays over the Yankees in 5. NLCS will have a magical run by the Cubs and they will beat the Cardinals in 7. In the bottom of the ninth of Game 7 of the World Series, the Toronto Blue Jays will be the first team since the 93 Blue Jays team to win the World Series on a walkoff home run. Maybe next year Cubs fans.)

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. Ty is way too young to remember the seething hatred all 80's Cardinals fans had for the Mets. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Please Leave Me out of Your Cool Beard Club

Behold hairy magnificence 

I've been writing about sports, music , TV and movies a lot lately.

Today, I'm going to go way off topic and talk about beards. I have a beard, but I'm not happy with the way I'm treated because I have a beard.

Now, I'm not treated poorly or differently from people without beards but, when I see another person with a beard they always seem to want to talk to me. I don't even know these people, but they feel a connection to me because we both have beards. Minus the facial hair, I'm sure we have nothing in common. These guys who share the same facial hair choice with me seem to be really into grooming their beards. They have them shaved in certain, "fashionable" ways or they have them combed in a specific way, or they have it in almost a hairdo type of way. Me, I have a "I'm too lazy to shave" type of way. I know that it's hip and cool to have a beard now. It's the new fashion trend for men. Much like the skinny jean or the glasses with no lenses, beards are having their day. The problem I have is the hipsters that groom these beards. You see guys out there with their handlebar mustaches that now have an equally groomed beard. This sickens me. Or, guys who have faux hawks and have a beard. How much more of a douchebag can you be. I'm a big Bryce Harper fan, but he looks like the definition of a douchebag frat boy with his hairdo and beard. There's also the guys with the "gruff" beard. This is done purposefully by these people. Just like shaggy hair was a thing in high school, having a "gruff"(I put it in quotes because these guys chose this look, they're doing it on purpose) beard is in. I believe the term thrown around is a "lumberjack beard". Do you know why lumberjack's have beards? It's not a fashion statement, these guys work in the absolute freezing cold, so a beard is just another layer of warmth for them. They don't do it to be fashionable, they do it to stay warm.

Now, I've had a beard for about 4 years straight. I shaved it completely off once because I lost 100 pounds and I wanted to see what my face looked like, but for most of my sons life, he's three and a half, I've had a full beard. I don't know why I started to grow it when I did. I guess it was because I started to lose my hair. I started going bald about eight years ago, but I was fully bald about five years ago. So, I guess I wanted to have hair somewhere on my face, so I chose a beard. When I started to grow it, I had bald patches right by my cheeks, so it took awhile for a full, big beard to grow. I didn't grow it big for fashion reasons, I grew it big so it looked full. It was around this same time that I noticed beards popping up almost everywhere. I'd go to the grocery store or the movies or even the mall, and about fifty percent of men had beards. No one was really doing anything fashionable at this time though. I was also given my first business card from a stranger promoting his beard grooming barber shop. This was when I started to become disillusioned with beards because I knew that something douchey and hipstery was coming.

And boy did it come with a huge explosion. I'd say the number jumped to about seventy five percent of men with beards (numbers are not exact). Still, I wasn't going to shave. Personally, I like having a beard because I feel that my face looks young without it. I like looking older. About nine months ago I had a normal sized beard, not too big, not too small. My wife told me she was pregnant with our second child and after an embrace, lots of hugs and kisses, I told her I wasn't going to shave until the baby was born. We are now six days away from the birth of my daughter. My beard is humongous(see above picture). I'm excited to get it trimmed after the baby is born because it is getting tangled and it's hard to clean thoroughly in the shower, basically it's more a hassle than anything else. Like I said, I'm going to keep my beard, but it doesn't need to be this huge.

The next thing I'm going to tell you almost made me shave my beard off last week. I was at Target with my wife and son and my parents. We were going through the check out aisle and another gentleman, a very nice guy in fact, came up to me with a business card, that's two for those of you counting out there, and it simply read, "Sweet Beard". This was all I saw at first, and even though this guy was very nice, I was angry. I was sick and tired of guys slapping me five or talking to me about grooming beards or casually telling me "nice beard" from a distance. I was fed up and I didn't want this card. I looked at him with a grimace on my face and quietly and angrily said "Thanks". I think he sensed my anger and softly told me, "my shop for beard grooming is on the back if you want to come by and get a trim". As I said, he was very nice and there was no need for me to be so mad. But then I looked at his beard and became even more upset. He had a HUGE beard, perfectly groomed. I wanted to scream at him, "I DIDN'T DO THIS FOR FASHION REASONS, I"M JUST LAZY!" I didn't do that because I'm a human being and I understand that I shouldn't act like a crazed lunatic to someone that's being nice to me (I have the internet as a place to act like a crazed lunatic).

But this brings me to the most important thing in my piece. I just cracked why I choose to have a beard. It was simple and has been staring me in the face for four years now. I'm lazy. I don't like to shave and the clean up afterward is too much. I don't like keeping my trimmers charged and I'm not going to use a straight razor because they burn my face. See, I found multiple reasons why I won't, but someone will read this and think that all that stuff is easy to do. But like I just said, I'm lazy. I'm not fashionable by any means necessary, and I didn't grow this beard to be "cool", I did it because I'm lazy.

It's as simple as that.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. His beard is the reason we hear Ty and do not see him. Wish him good luck with the new kid by following Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Greatest American Band Debate: Outkast

For the Greatest American Band debate today, I'm nominating Outkast.

Outkast is probably my second favorite rap group, behind A Tribe Called Quest. For those of you out there complaining that two people don't make a group, two or more is the definition of a group. You need at least two people to form a group, and Outkast found two of the coolest, most innovative rappers and musicians. Outkast started in 1992 in Atlanta, Georgia. Andre 3000 and Big Boi met each other at a mall, and their connection was immediate. They both like the same kind of music, and had grown up in the same type of households. Little did they, or any of us for that matter, know that their music would cross generations, have tons of hits, win a shitload of awards and become classic. They were just two young dudes that liked to rap.

As I said before, they formed Outkast in 1992, but they didn't put out their first album until 1994. In 1994 they put out "Southernplayalisticaddilacmuzik". Say that three times fast. This is a phenomenal debut. The songs on this record allowed both Andre 3000 and Big Boi to shine. You could hear, early on, that they both had very unique, almost unheard of styles of rapping. Take a song like "Players Ball" off this album. In this song, you can hear Andre 3000's love for funk come through not only in his rapping, but also in the music put to the verses. "Players Ball" also gave us the hard, almost gangster style of rap from Big Boi. He had a much gruffer flow, but paired together with Andre 3000's smooth delivery, it was perfect. Another great song on this album is the self titled "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik". This song is an homage to funky, dirty rap music. The chorus is awesome and both members are outstanding rapping on this song. "Southernplayalisticadilacmuzik" is the gateway to how groovy, funky and nasty, in a good way, that Outkast would eventually become. The song "Hootie Hoo" off this record is Big Boi at his absolute best. This is a straight forward rap song, none of the funkiness is needed from Andre 3000, and Big Boi demolishes this song. I feel that Big Boi was at his absolute best on this album. That's not to take anything away from him on subsequent records, he's great all the way through, but he's best on "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik".

In 1996 Outkast released their second album, "ATLiens" to critical acclaim. The fans love this album too. One of their biggest hits is on this album, "Elevators (Me and You)". This song is absolutely incredible. Big Boi and Andre 3000 each do their own thing to perfection, and the chorus "me and you, your momma and your cousin too, rolling down the strip on fours, coming back with the Cadillac doors" is so cool and so memorable. This song was my jam in middle school. You also get "Jazzy Belles" and "Wheelz of Steel" on this record. "Jazzy Belles" is when Andre 3000 kind of took a step forward and became the "leader" of Outkast. This song is all him, written and mostly performed by only him and it's fantastic. "Wheelz of Steel" is more in Big Boi's wheelhouse. It's another straight ahead rap song that Big Boi crushed. You could see early on that each had their own style, but they knew how to blend together really well.

In 1998 we got, what I consider, to be the first truly great Outkast album, "Aquemini". The songs are great on this record, but I want to take a second to talk about the album artwork. This is one of the coolest covers to an album that I've ever seen. It's like they painted a picture of the two of them in the gaudiest, most ridiculous outfits, but only a band like Outkast could've pulled it off. Andre 3000 is shirtless, wearing a turban on his head, and Big Boi is literally dressed like a pimp, in a green three piece suit, top offed with a feather in his hat. Now the songs. On "Aquemini", we got the classic, "Rosa Parks". This song is so awesome. The video was cuckoo bananas, but the song is great and the chorus is wonderful. Say what you will about Outkast, those guys can write a catchy hook. You all know it, "ah nah, hush that fuss, everybody move to the back of the bus". It's so, so cool on so many levels. Rosa Parks was so offended by the language in this song that she sued Outkast, but they settled out of court because they explained to her that the song was an homage to her courage. We also got a song more in Big Boi's tone with "Skew It on the Bar B". It's another run of the mill rap song made ten thousand times better by Outkast. This song also has another great chorus. The song "Spottieopiedopealicious" off this record is where my love for Outkast became real to me. This is the funkiest rap song I've ever heard. It's got great, funky backing music and it's a story, not a song. This song showed me a completely new style of rap that I didn't think existed. I love this song and any time it comes on my iPod, I turn the radio up.

Outkast next album is the greatest album of their illustrious career. In 2000 they put out "Stankonia". This was my jam in high school. When this record came out, it was all I listened to on my way to and from school for almost a year straight. Every song on this record is a classic. We all know the hits, "So Fresh, So Clean", "B.O.B" and "Ms. Jackson". These songs are great. "So Fresh, So Clean" became the anthem for me and the entire football team. Another great chorus, that I still sing to this day, and both Big Boi and Andre 3000 do their thing on this track. The guy that sings the chorus sounds like a 21st century Barry White. This song is incredible. "B.O.B" is like a great rock song. There's heavy guitar and both members are rapping so fast, I had to look up what they were saying. This is a great song to listen to while working out, or if you need to be pumped up for something. "Ms. Jackson" may be Outkast's most recognizable single. Everybody knows the chorus and when Andre says, "wooooooo, I AM FOR REAL", everyone sings along with him. This song has their best chorus of any song they've ever written. While all three of these are classics, I really enjoy the first track on the album, "Gasoline". This is another rap song that has the heavy guitar and faster rapping on it. It's like a rock and roll song, but better because of the way Outkast performs it. "Stankonia" is on the Mount Rushmore of albums for me.

With rumors swirling after the release of "Stankonia" that the band was breaking up, they put out a double album in 2003 that allowed the two of them to put out solo records, but release it under the name Outkast. "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" was an excellent experiment by Outkast. I will admit, I've only listened to "Speakerboxxx", Big Boi's "solo" album, maybe three times all the way through. It isn't that good in my opinion, and I feel like Big Boi only did it as a favor to Andre 3000. But, "The Love Below" is an absolute masterpiece. Songs like "Prototype", "Vibrate", "Roses" and the mega hit, "Hey Ya" are classics. "Prototype" has Andre 3000 playing an electric guitar and singing a love song. "Vibrate" is an experimental hip hop song that I guarantee inspired Flying Lotus to do music. "Roses" is a collaboration with Andre and Big Boi. Very good chorus and very good vocals. The video for this song is cool too. And of course we got "Hey Ya" off this record. If you don't know this song, you've been living under a rock for the past decade. "The Love Below" proved to me and the rest of the world that Andre 3000 was the genius that Big Boi needed when Outkast started and that Andre 3000 is extremely talented.

After this record, each member went their own way. Big Boi acted a bit, but he has kept to himself for the most part. Andre 3000 is a bona fide star now. They did make another album, the soundtrack to their movie "Idlewild". This soundtrack is fine, but it's nothing compared to their previous work. The movie is okay as well, but not great. Outkast has won several grammys and many, many other awards. They each are able to do their own things now and do them successfully. They had a great run as a band and released some of the best rap music to date. For these and many other reasons, Outkast belongs in this conversation. I will be forever indebted to them for introducing me to funky rap music and "dirty south" rap music. I love Outkast and I hope the rumors of a reunion tour are true. They got back together in 2014 and performed some shows, but I want then to do a new album and tour the country. One can only hope.

Thanks Outkast, thank you for all the great music.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the othert host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He has many other rap artists to nominate, but is curious about your Greatest American Band. Join the debate, then follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

You Would Not Take Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers in Your Fantasy Draft.

NFL scout deep in thought

Last night I watched the Packers play the Chiefs on "Monday Night Football".

The Packers, and most importantly Aaron Rodgers, shredded a pretty good Chiefs defense. I know that the Chiefs have some injuries in the secondary and they start a rookie back there, but Rodgers looked invincible last night. Throws were on target. He hit receivers in stride. He moved around the pocket with a mastery I haven't seen since Brett Favre. Basically, in my opinion, Rodgers has surpassed Tom Brady and Peyton Manning as the best quarterback in football.

On the other sideline, the Chiefs have a very different situation at quarterback. Now, I'm an Alex Smith fan. I think he's a serviceable quarterback. At his best, he's a decent game manager. But, last night, he looked lost and scared. His offensive line could not block the Packers defensive line last night. When he did have time, he danced around in the pocket and usually ended up scrambling for small to no gains. When he had open receivers, he either under threw or flat out missed them. The Chiefs did break their streak of no passing touchdowns to receivers, but by that point in the game, it was moot. Jamaal Charles played well, he always does, but the Chiefs need Alex Smith to do more if they want to compete in the AFC. Jamaal Charles can only do so much, he needs help from his quarterback.

The game and the Packer win is not the point of my column today. While watching this game last night, the commentators for ESPN(the god awful team of Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico) brought up the fact that Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers were in the same draft class. One of them was the first overall pick in the 2005 draft, the other was the 24th overall pick. Watching this game, you'd think that Rodgers was clearly the first overall pick, right? Well, you'd be wrong. Alex Smith was the overall number one pick in that draft by the San Francisco 49ers. After the 49ers took Smith, 22 other teams passed on Aaron Rodgers. He had a funky delivery and he didn't have a ton of highlights as the quarterback of the Cal Bears. At least, that's what the "geniuses" said on their scouting reports. Rumors also surfaced that the Packers picked him out of spite. They didn't want the Chicago Bears to draft him, who had the next pick, which they then immediately traded after the Packers took Rodgers. People in Green Bay and fans of the Packers all over the world were furious that the Packers took Rodgers, my father and I included. We didn't want a quarterback, we had Favre. And if they were going to take a QB, why Rodgers? We all thought he wouldn't amount to much of an NFL player. He would also have to sit behind Favre until Favre was done playing. The pick didn't make any sense to anyone, except for the editor of this website, RD. He called me and my dad after the pick and said that the Packers got the steal of the draft, and that Rodgers was going to be a star. We told him he was nuts. He had no idea what he was talking about.

I'm glad that I was wrong. I'm thrilled to have Aaron Rodgers quarterbacking my team. But, Rodgers did have to sit for the first four years of his career and learn from Favre. The same couldn't be said for the first overall pick, Alex Smith. He was going to be the savior of the 49er franchise in the early 21st century. His blend of athleticism, he ran the spread at Utah before almost every team was running it in college football, was going to change the position. Unfortunately, the 49ers were not a good team and Smith's first five years were rough. The 49ers lured Jim Harbaugh away from Stanford in 2011 and that changed Smith's NFL career, for one and a half seasons. In Harbaugh's first season, he needed Smith to be a manager of the game, and that's what he got. Smith became a guy that didn't turn the ball over and could move the chains with short passes and his legs. He led the 49ers to the playoffs for the first time in a long time. During that same season, 2011, Aaron Rodgers coming off a Super Bowl win in 2010, won the MVP. He was no game manager, he was a game winner. The very next season, the 49ers had one of the best starts of any team in the NFL, and Smith was leading the way. He suffered a concussion midway through the season, and lost his starting job to second year "phenom" Colin Kaepernick. As athletic as Smith was, Kaepernick was younger and more athletic. Harbaugh rode Kaepernick all the way to the Super Bowl, the Ravens beat the 49ers, and Smith was relegated to back up duty. Meanwhile, Rodgers was putting up huge numbers, won a title, won two MVP awards, was a constant on All Pro and Pro Bowl teams, winning division titles with ease and playing in the playoffs every year. Their careers were on completely different paths. Rodgers was playing like the first overall pick, and Smith, he may as well been a fourth round pick. The 49ers traded Smith to the Chiefs the season following their Super Bowl appearance. The Chiefs have been an okay team under Smith, but they haven't had anything near the success the Packers have enjoyed with Rodgers at the helm.

Just to give you guys a taste of some of the players picked between Smith and Rodgers, names like, Cadillac Williams(out of the league), Braylon Edwards(out of the league), Cedric Benson(out of the league), Ronnie Brown(I think he's out of the league), Shawne Merriman(retired and also a women abuser) and David Pollack(out of the league due to a neck injury and a huge chauvinist). Guys who are still playing that were picked before Rodgers include some good players like Derrick Johnson(linebacker for the Chiefs), Damarcus Ware(linebacker for the Broncos) and Adam "Pac Man" Jones(DB for the Bengals). These guys are good, but I'd much rather have Aaron Rodgers. I know that not all teams need a QB when it's draft time, or that the draft is a total crap shoot, but Rodgers is, by far, the best player taken in the 2005 draft. Watching the game last night and hearing that they were in the same draft class was so shocking to me. I thought Rodgers was older than Alex Smith because he's so much better than Alex Smith. Rodgers has mastered the quarterback position, and Alex Smith struggles to be a game manager. The fact that the 49ers thought so highly of Smith and that Rodgers wasn't even on their radar is bewildering to me. I'm sure they wish they had taken Rodgers, but I'm sure a lot of teams in the 2005 draft wished they'd taken Rodgers. I guess you never truly know what you will get out of the draft, but last night, Aaron Rodgers was one thousand times better than Alex Smith, and Rodgers was picked 23 spots later than Smith.

Truly, head scratching.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He gives the editor too much credit, I just thought the Packers were being asses to the Bears. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Sunday Night TV on Fox is Mostly All Right

Stop hanging out with Mother Nature. Good TV is back on.

Sunday night TV is back people.

I've been waiting all summer, now we are in fall technically, for good TV shows. In the summer, we are subjected to reality show after reality show. These shows are cheap to make and viewers flock to them for reasons I'll never understand. My wife loves reality TV. She watches all the iterations of "Teen Mom", she likes all the reality cooking shows, anything except the Kardashian crap that's on TV basically. I inevitably end up watching some of these shows with her because I enjoy spending time with her. But, these are really awful shows. They're all the same and they tend to be very boring because reality is pretty boring.

There was some good summer TV though. I loved "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll", season two of "Married" has been great, and "Review" is the best show on TV right now in my personal opinion. But, most of these are just about done with their seasons as summer comes to an end. Well, last night Fox returned to its Sunday night programming with four of the best, most enjoyable shows on TV right now. There's technically five shows on their Sunday night lineup, but I don't care for "Family Guy", so I don't watch it. But, we got season premieres from "Bob's Burgers", "The Simpsons", "Brooklyn 99" and "Last Man on Earth". I absolutely adore all four of these shows. Everyone who reads my writings knows that I'm a HUGE "Simpsons" fan and if you listened to the most recent podcast, you all know how I feel about "Last Man on Earth". "Bob's Burgers" and "Brooklyn 99" are just as good.

The night started off with "Bob's Burgers". In the season premiere, we got three different stories, one from Gene, one from Tina and one from Louise, each talking about what would've happened had Bob and Linda never got married. This topic is brought up because Bob is losing his mustache, which is his most attractive quality to Linda. Tina believes that, no matter what, fate brought her parents together and, mustache or no mustache, they still would have found and married each other. The kids stories are all hilarious, Gene's being my favorite, and the episode is great. "Bob's Burgers" is the type of show that just gets better and stronger as each season goes on. I was very pleased with the premiere.

Next, we got the biggest story of the summer, in sitcom news, that Homer and Marge were going to split up on the season premiere of "The Simpsons". The episode started with the two of them in therapy, due to Homer's new found narcolepsy, and Marge is fed up with Homer's excuses. Homer isn't listening, classic Homer, and he falls asleep. Here we get the Simpsons version of the movie "Inception". Did Homer and Marge really split up, or was it just a dream from Homer? Marge was asleep at one point, so was it a dream from Marge? I'll leave that up to your own interpretation. Lena Dunham was excellent as Homer's new girlfriend. Another solid season premiere from "The Simpsons". I love that a show that's been on the air for almost thirty years can still come up with fresh and funny ideas.

"Brooklyn 99" started right where the last season left off. Jake and Amy kissed and their relationship is the thru line for the whole episode, but they get a new captain and we get to see where Holt and Gina are now. The precinct's new captain was played hilariously by Bill Hader. He was a total hard ass, but had an aortic problem and would have involuntary heart attacks. Hader was really, really good. Amy and Jake decide to date for real and the whole precinct eventually finds out, even with the two of them trying their best to keep it secret. Holt is now working for Wunch in a terrible circumstance. They hate each other and she's his superior and she's giving him tedious, menial tasks. The shouting match between the two of them is very funny. Gina is his secretary and she is still very full of herself and really great. Chelsea Peretti is perfect for this role. Back at the 99, Hader has a for real heart attack and dies, so they get yet another captain. The new captain is "the vulture", those of you who watch the show know exactly who I'm taking about, and everyone is extremely upset.

The final show of the night was "Last Man on Earth". When we left last season, Phil had been kicked out of Tucson and was told not to come back. To everyone's surprise, Carol came to his aid and they drove away. We opened this season by seeing a stealth plane on the streets of DC and Phil and Carol are driving to the store to get tequila. There's great moments in the White House with the two of them laying together in the margarita pool, they play with busts of the presidents, Carol tries on a lot of the former First Ladies clothes and they ride dune buggies around the house. We learn that they haven't found a place to stay yet and it's clear that Carol wants to go back to Tucson. This starts a fight between the two of them and Carol retreats to the back of the RV to sleep. Phil stops at a gas station to siphon gas and Carol goes into the store, unbeknownst to Phil, to get some clothes. Phil finishes with the gas and starts the RV and drives away, loudly listening to music. Carol gets stranded, and it's not until hours later that Phil realizes Carol isn't there and he turns around to try and find her. He ends up back in Tucson, but it's a ghost town and there looks to have been a fire. Carol isn't there and Phil doesn't know what to do next. All the while this is going on, there's another story involving Phil's brother who's in outer space. He's looking for any sign of life, but no luck so far. As the episode ends, Phil, Carol and Phil's brother are all alone. It was sad, but such a great ending to the season premiere.

I'm so excited for all four of these shows to be back. Sunday's are now complete and will be during these shows runs. So, make sure you all stop watching reality TV now that Sunday nights on Fox are providing you some excellent, original material.

As Homer would say, "woo hoo!"

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He thinks HBO Sunday night is for suckers who still hide their 20 sided die. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

"The Jim Gaffigan Show" Season Finale and Looking Forward to Season 2

All set for the next great show

This past Wednesday the season finale of the first season of "The Jim Gaffigan Show" aired.

I wrote about the show after the premiere and, as I wrote back then, I really enjoyed the episode. The season only got stronger as the first season went on. The show consistently got better and funnier. Gaffigan is a hilarious comedian and he and his wife wrote a very, very good show. Michael Ian Black and Adam Goldberg were pretty fantastic in their roles. Michael Ian Black was Jim's wife's ex boyfriend. It's quickly revealed that he's gay now and he and Jeanie are best friends. He's a realtor, but that's not what made him so good in this role. He and Jim Gaffigan are not friendly towards each other. Their scenes together are great. Every time they were on screen together, it was hilarious. Adam Goldberg plays Jim's comic friend Dave that still lives with his mom in her nursing home. He's the complete opposite of Jim Gaffigan. He has no wife and kids, therefore, no responsibilities. I didn't know what to expect from Goldberg in this role, he seems like an intense dude, but he was really, very funny. I enjoyed him a lot. Ashley Williams plays Jeanie, Jim's wife. As I mentioned in my previous blog, she's really excellent on this show. I knew nothing of her before, but I really liked her on this show. Besides Jim Gaffigan, she was the best one on the show by far.

There's other primary characters, the Gaffigan's nanny, the people that work at the deli, the children, but the one non main cast member I want to point out was Macauly Caulkin. He played himself and he would show up in random spots throughout the season. He was an employee at a coffee shop, you saw him walk out of Scores Strip Club with a date, he showed up at a party full of comics, and he made an appearance in the finale hanging out with Alec Baldwin. It was so bizarre and excellent. I loved that he took this role, and the fact that he played it so well. Kudos to Macauly Caulkin.

But, I'm here to talk about the finale. It was really good. The show has already been renewed for a second season, so I think this kept the writers and actors at ease, and they all had a really good time doing this episode. The finale started with Jim Gaffigan and Dave going to lunch at the Katz Deli they frequent throughout the season. Dave is telling him that he's going to Melbourne, Australia for the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It's a one month commitment and Jim lets him know that he turned down his offer because of his wife and kids. He has five children after all. They both run into another comic, John Mulaney, and he and Dave are talking about the great time they're going to have in Melbourne. Gaffigan seems jealous of what the two of them are planning. He definitely wants to go, but he just can't. His house is also all getting over the stomach flu, adding more insult to the injury of him not being able to go to Melbourne. This does produce a hilarious line from Gaffigan talking to Dave. Dave is "scared" to visit his house because it's "crawling with disease" and Gaffigan counters this by saying, "you ever puked while having diarrhea? You go right through the five hole". Absolutely hilarious. Gaffigan returns home and all the kids may or may not have lice. There was an out break at the school and Jeanie, always one to over prepare, is making sure no one has lice. This annoys Gaffigan. He is tasked to watch one of the kids in the tub and he looks away for a split second and another one of his children throws his laptop in the full bathtub. This makes Gaffigan extremely angry. He's yelling at his wife and kids and he needs to leave the house to get some air. He feels like he's suffocating. While out, he runs into his preacher and tells him, in a fit of rage, that he wishes he never had a wife and kids. He then sees Steve Buscemi about to get hit by a bunch of bicyclists, steps in the way and he gets knocked out. Then, the "Scrooged" effect comes into play. Buscemi plays his guardian angel and takes him around town in a world where he never met Jeanie and they never had kids. In this world he's a filthy comic, we all know Gaffigan works clean, and his comic friends hate him. He has a full head of hair, but he looks like an a hole frat boy. He now lives with Dave. In this universe, Dave is the responsible one, threatening to kick Gaffigan out if he doesn't stop bringing home loose girls and not paying his part of the rent. His preacher thinks he's a crazy homeless person and doesn't try to help him. But, in Gaffigan's mind, the worst thing of all, Jeanie owns a bar and is married to Michael Ian Black's character, who's put on a lot of weight. Jeanie looks like a punk rocker and proclaims to Jim that she would never marry him and that she hates kids. Meanwhile, Michael Ian Black is a huge fan of Gaffigan's and tells him his standup is not only great, but it makes him love all food. Everything is different, for the worse. After the Jeanie from this universe claims she hates kids, she punches Jim in the face. This takes us back to present day in real time. Gaffigan wakes up, realizes everything is normal again and immediately runs home. We get to his house and his real wife Jeanie is cooking in the kitchen. His real children all come to hug him and Gaffigan is happy once again. When Jeanie asks him why he's acting so weird, he says he had a dream that a television network filmed a bunch of actors portraying their real lives. Then, the cast of "The Gaffigan Show" all appear and start singing "Auld Lyn Syng". They all proclaim they're excited for season two and the finale ends.

It was a great ending to a great first season of "The Jim Gaffigan Show". I'm excited for season two and I'm happy that Jim Gaffigan has a platform to put his family friendly standup and stories on the air. Thanks TV Land and Nickelodeon. You guys made a great choice. And thank you Jim and Jeanie Gaffigan for sharing these excellent stories with us.

Bring on season two.

Ty

Ty is the pop culture editor for SeedSing and the co host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Ty does not envy the choices one makes when they have diarreha and have to puke. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

John Hodgman doesn't do your Normal Comedy Show, and that is Good

Boats + Maine = Comedy

Last night I went with a friend of mine to see comedian, podcaster, and actor John Hodgman at the Ready Room in St.Louis.

I didn't know what to expect from Hodgman's standup show. I knew, prior to the show, who he is. He's been a correspondent on "The Daily Show" for years. He appears on a television show I enjoy quite a bit on FXX called "Married". He has his own podcast, "Judge John Hodgman" and he appears on many other podcasts as a guest. And yes, almost everyone knows him as the PC in the old Apple Computers commercials. But, he just started his own standup tour, and like I said before, I didn't know what to expect. Everything he's done before has been a mishmash of comedy, drama and total absurdity. He was straight forward as the PC. He's a married guy that's sex crazed on "Married". On his podcast, he simply judges things. People give him two topics and he picks a winner, simple as that. When he's a guest on other podcasts, he's usually a glorified version of himself. On "The Daily Show", he's a smart ass street reporter.

That's what I expected going into last night, "The Daily Show" version of John Hodgman. And, he did deliver on that version, but his show was so much more. I was very pleasantly surprised at all the stories within the two main stories he told. He seemed to be more a humorist than a standup. That made me happy. Yes, he was his character from "The Daily Show" except more vulnerable. He told the audience that every story was 100 percent true, and we all believed him. It was different from other standup shows I go to in it's structure. The majority of standup comics tell stories or they have jokes that come at you nonstop. The only time most comedians stop is to let the laughter stop and then bam, they hit you with another joke. That's what I'm used to. Well, last night, John Hodgman was on stage for almost 90 minutes and he told two total stories. I'd never seen anything like this before. What made it so enjoyable to me was the fact that I was never bored. You'd think that if you only heard two full stories in 90 minutes you'd get bored, but that wasn't the case last night. And yes, he'd tell little mini jokes in the stories. He's a comic, comics tell jokes. But, he's not your typical standup. Like I said before, he's a humorist, as pretentious as that may sound.

His first story was about his summer home in Massachusetts. He regaled us with stories about taking trash to a dump and having to make up stories due to his own insecurities. We learned that he has two children that are at the age where their parents are too old to hang out with. He and comedic musician John Coulton are long time friends. He told us how the both of them got super high, went swimming in a river and made cairns. The best part of this story was that college students slowly drove past them, turned a corner and came back to where they were, Hodgman extremely frightened at this point, and were shocked that the two of them were hanging out in their small town. The college students were huge fans of both of them. There were many other stories and bits attached to this first story, and they were all great.

The second story was about his other summer home in Maine. It was at this point where I heard one of the funniest things in standup that I've ever heard. After telling us that he had a second summer home, he said "welcome to a night of white privilege comedy"! That was hilarious! He knew that it wasn't relatable, but he managed to find a way to make it absolutely hilarious. We got stories during his second part of his show about how sad and gloomy Maine is. He told us about a tourist shop that has all the trappings of your typical tourist shop. You couldn't use the restroom there, there was aisle after aisle of crappy toys and souvenirs and, of course, they sold fudge. I was happy to hear that he doesn't care for fudge because, "it's disgusting and looks like shit". His exact words and I couldn't agree more. I hate fudge. My favorite part of this part of the show was him talking about buying a boat. Another unrelatable story that he made very funny. He told us all about the maker of the boat and how he was a famous guy in the town they have their summer home in. Apparently this guy was a huge asshole and he only made 107 of these "peapod" boats. He told his wife that, just to have fun, they'd bid on the opening bid. The boat was being sold at auction. He asked around and the townspeople told him that the last boat sold for over 10,000 dollars. So, he figured opening bid was enough and someone would eventually outbid them. Well, the opening bid came in at 3,500 dollars and his wife raised the placard. But, no one else was bidding, much to Hodgman's dismay. Finally someone pushed the bid to 3,600 dollars and he thought they were in the clear. Not the case. Hodgman's wife was caught up in the auction and bid 3,700 dollars. After seven minutes of no one bidding, the boat was sold to them. So, now he owns a boat. The story he told of the townspeople congratulating him and his wife for how cheap they got the boat was very funny.

Just when we thought the show was over, Hodgman pulled out a ukulele and played two folk songs. Nothing humorous about the songs, just two sweet, very nice folk songs. And, my goodness does he have a very good singing voice. I was shocked and loved every second of how he ended his show. It was completely off the wall and super, super cool. Go out and see John Hodgman's Vacationland if he's coming anywhere close to you. It's not your typical standup show, but you will enjoy yourself.

I know I did.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co host of the X Millennial Man podcast. It is funny how many comedy shows Ty attends. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

What Do We Call a Device that is More than a Phone?

This is a phone. It does not fit in your pocket.

A device was patented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1876 by Scottish immigrant, Alexander Graham Bell. Although there is a lot of dispute over who invented the electric telephone sparking the sequence of events which eventually became the phone we know of today, Bell is most commonly credited for it in the United States due to his patent. Certainly other key inventors and tinkerers of the day, such as Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, and Elisha Gray, are just as if not more praiseworthy as Bell was. Many more innovations since then have contributed to what we today refer to as “the phone” making all these inventors mere cogs in the machine that is and has been the technology revolution.

Prior to the transmission of voice signals the telephone was a term used in other inventions. This includes an invention by a captain named John Taylor who used a series of horns to communicate between sailing vessels in the fog and called the system The Telephone. Comparatively, many inventors who were working on devices that convert sound to electrical signals did not use the term telephone at all.

The term telephone is derived from the Greek word tēle which means “far” and the Greek word phōnē which means “voice”. Put together it means “distant voice”. I would say that the term is certainly something that refers to transmitting speech over long distances. The term we use today, “phone”, is merely a shortened version of original term and I think still refers to sending a voice over a distance.

The device that we commonly refer to as a phone does include a feature of sending voice over long distances. However, I think it is long overdue that we consider other ways to refer to the device since transmitting voice is far from the primary use of those devices.

There are some types of these devices which are more dedicated to the task of transmitting voice than others. Sometimes these devices are referred to as dumb phones or feature phones. I have no doubt that many users of those types of devices do primarily use them for voice communication. But even those have the capability of text and sometimes image or video communication. I know many users of those devices who communicate primarily in text as well. Therefore, I think that it is a misnomer to call these phones as well.

When it really comes down to it what we are talking about are computers. These devices are specialized computers with a cellular connection which can be used for voice, data, text messages, games, productivity applications, picture taking, navigating, picture taking, etc. These devices are just as much a camera as they are a phone. They are much more than a single feature. They are an extension of ourselves. A device that allows us have near constant ability to communicate in various ways with the world. A multi-tool, an electronic swiss army knife that allows us to do tasks that our biology does not inherently allow. It is so much more than simply a phone.

So the first question is: What do we call it instead? While I like the idea of “electronic multi-tool” or “electronic swiss army knife”, I doubt that it could be widely adopted if it required saying more than one or two words. Maybe that sounds like I am saying that humanity is lazy but I guess I am. We already use the term “phone” to refer to these devices and I doubt anyone will put forth the effort to both use a more appropriate term AND use more words. It just will not happen.

One term that I have pushed for in the past is “comm”. It is a device which is used to communicate in various ways. I thought it worked. I never got anyone else used to it though and eventually I gave up. Furthermore, I now realize that it does not encompass some of the other functions of the device. The tools such as navigation or picture taking are not fully encompassed by the term “comm”.

My favorite idea currently is actually an acronym. It is an acronym that has been used in the past for these devices before they turned into phones. Personal Digital Assistant shortened to PDA really fits the bill. I think that term describes exactly what these devices do for us. However, I am open to other ideas. Do you have a better term for the devices we commonly refer to as a phone? Lets share our ideas in the comments below.

Kirk Aug

Kirk writes about tech trends, science, and whatever else society wants to innovate next. He still does not know how to explain the save icon on a Word document, is it a piece of St. Louis style pizza? Follow Kirk on twitter @kirkaug.

The Greatest American Band Debate: The Sugarhill Gang

SeedSing is filled with music lovers. We can not agree on who is the best band from the States. The Greatest American Band Debate will be a regular feature where we discuss and compare bands who started in the good old USA. If you have any suggestions of bands we should debate Contact us seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

For Seedsing's Greatest American Band debate, I'm going to nominate a group based solely on one song.

That may sound weird, or even unfair, but this one song started a revolution of great, great music that, had these guys not put this song out, we may have never had. The band that I'm going to nominate today is Sugarhill Gang. We all know their famous song, "Rapper's Delight". This is the one song that I'm speaking of and will be the basis of my blog today. In 1979 three guys, Master Gee, Wonder Mike and the now deceased, Big Bank Hank, started a rap group in New Jersey. All three of them had their own rapping style, but combined, they made one of the most influential and greatest rap songs of all time. Without these three, and their producers and business people that were around them, we never would have gotten rap music. Some may argue with me and claim that Blondie's "Rapture" was the first rap song, but it's not. "Rapture" came out in the early eighties and "Rapper's Delight" came out in 1979. Blondie was not a rap group as well. Blondie was a rock group that happened to have Debra Harry "rap" on one song. It gained commercial success because Blondie was a great band and Debra Harry was very pretty. But, had "Rapture" been the stepping off point for rap music, we would've never gotten some of the greats that we now have or had. "Rapper's Delight" and Sugarhill Gang made rap accessible to everyone. This song crossed generations and races of all kinds. Talk to anyone you know, be they a fan of rap, rock, reggae, blues, jazz, any type of music and I guarantee they all know at least one line from "Rapper's Delight". This song is one of the greatest songs of all time. Not just rap, I'm talking any genre of music.

Sugarhill Gang was composed of the three guys I mentioned before. They were all free style rappers, but they didn't really know how to put their music on a record. In the late 70's, rap was not a thing. It hadn't been invented yet. Some producers heard what these guys were doing, and they wanted to put it on record so everyone could hear it. They just didn't know how to put music to what they were doing. Some genius decided to use a sample from a Chic song and the idea of sampling and rap was born. The Chic song they used was "Good Times". It had a constant beat that went throughout the whole song. The producers isolated this music and had the members of Sugarhill Gang put their rap verses to the music. "Rapper's Delight", and for all intents and purposes, rap music was born.

"Rapper's Delight" is, by far, the longest rap song that I've ever heard. It comes in at just around 8 minutes. How crazy is that?"! A rap song lasting for 8 minutes is unheard of, unless we're talking Wu Tang Clan which I'll write about on another day. The length of the song allowed each member to truly shine. We, the audience, got to hear these three emcees do their thing. They were incredible, and no one knew what to call this music. People were amazed at what these guys were doing. They brought the world and the US a new style of music. What made it even more crazy was the fact that there was no hook or chorus. When each rapper took his turn, they spoke the famous lyrics, "I said a hip hop, the hip to the hop you don't stop, rock the bang bang boogie, the up jump the boogity beat". Those are the first real verses of rap music ever recorded. This song was so popular, it was the first rap song to reach the Billboard Top 40. It was lightening in a bottle. 

I was born three years after the song came out, but "Rapper's Delight" was my ipso facto introduction to rap music. To hear what these three did was incredible. I didn't hear the song until the nineties, I was a teenager, but even back then, I understood the importance to rap music that this song had. Without this song, I would never had listened to Notorious B.I.G or Jay Z or A Tribe Called Quest or even rap groups like Outkast. You can go back and watch or read interviews with the vast majority of rappers and rap groups and they will all cite Sugarhill Gang and "Rapper's Delight" being one of their gateways to rap music.

As I said before, this song crosses many, many generations. The first person to tell me and have me listen to this song was my father. He's 32 years older than I am. I have a three year old son and I will put "Rapper's Delight" on in the car and he will mumble the lyrics I wrote before. So, just between three people, myself, my father and my son, we all know the song. That's a 64 year old, a 32 year old and a 3 year old. Tell me one other song that does that. Another great thing about Sugarhill Gang as a group, they're clean. They don't use any swear words and their albums are family friendly. That's almost unheard of in a lot of music today. I love that I can play "Rapper's Delight" with my son in the car. He likes the song and it gives me a chance to listen to something other than children's music. Don't get me wrong, I like that the kids music helps my son learn, but I'd much rather listen to "Rapper's Delight" than the ABC song again.

Sugarhill Gang put out five albums, but nothing came close to the greatness that is "Rapper's Delight". Their other stuff is decent, and they even made a kids rap album, but "Rapper's Delight" was their peak. What a great peak to have though. They are responsible for creating an entire genre of music. The music they created, rap music, may be the most popular music there is today. They are still performing today with the two surviving members and some other friends of theirs. That's pretty incredible that they are still out there doing music. They've even scored some top 100 hits, but it's all overseas.  

With one single song, Sugarhill Gang created rap. That's reason enough for me to nominate them in our debate. They may be more of an influence, which I've written about, but they created "Rapper's Delight", therein creating rap. They belong on this list for that reason alone. Go out, after you read this, and listen to "Rapper's Delight" and be grateful that they created this song. Without Sugarhill Gang, we wouldn't have rap and without rap, we wouldn't have some of the greatest music there is today.

Thank you Sugarhill Gang. You guys belong in the Greatest American Band debate.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of the X Millennial Man podcast. When he was little, Ty thought hip hop was what a rabbit listen to. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Why is Joe Maddon so Bush League?

Birth place of the modern Cardinal Way

Who in the world does Joe Maddon think he is?

Sure, he's a good baseball coach. Good, not yet great. If he can take the Cubs to the World Series and win, then he becomes great. But where does this air of superiority come from? Does he think he's the greatest manager of all time? Does he feel like he can write the rules of baseball and everyone has to do as he says?

I bring all this up because, in the recent series with the Cardinals, not only did he call out the "Cardinal Way", but he repeatedly had his pitchers throw at Cardinal batters. I understand the first time because the Cardinals hit one of the young Cub stars, Anthony Rizzo. In baseball the unwritten rule is, you hit one of our guys, we are going to hit one of your guys. This rule has been around forever and it's not going anywhere. But, to complain about the "Cardinal Way" after that particular game, and then to go out in the next game and hit three Cardinal batters, that's down right douchey. That's like a frat boy not getting the girl he wants because she already has a boyfriend and he gets his lame frat "brothers" and they outnumber the boyfriend and beat him up.

I'm trying to say that you sound like an upset frat boy Joe Maddon.

Also, why are you so against the "Cardinal Way"? This is a term I don't particularly care for, but all the Cardinals do is win, so the "Cardinal Way" must be working. Wouldn't you want to model your team after a successful team? Every other league is a copycat league, but you Mr. Maddon, like to "think outside the box". Sure, your way has gotten you to one World Series, which you lost, and won you a couple of division titles, but you've never truly won anything of importance as a manager. You act like you're the king of baseball though.

Why is that?

The only reason I can come up with is, the horrible people at ESPN love you, so they constantly do stories on you. I feel like this makes you think that your more important to the game than you truly are. No one outside of Chicago cares about you and your way of coaching. Sure, you have a good, young team that is on the verge of greatness, but you are just an okay manager. To attack the Cardinals the way you did was bush league. Spoiler alert for you Joe Maddon, the Cardinals aren't fazed by trash talk. They could care less that you called them out on ESPN. The Cardinals are an organization that goes about their business with class and style. They don't feel the need to attack other teams or players via the media unlike you Joe Maddon. It's also absurd that after you got your eye for an eye in the first game, the very next night you felt it was okay to hit three more players. What kind of amateur shit is that?! Do actions like this make you feel like you're a tough guy? It makes you look like an asshole, not a tough guy. To people outside Chicago, you're bush league. That's what a little league coach who has way too much invested in his little league team does. You're a manager of a professional sports team. Act like it for god's sakes. Don't act like a frat boy or a little brother. I thought that your schtick was okay when you were in Tampa, but now that you're in a big city, I see the true person that you are and it's an ugly, mean person.

It's funny to me that you chose the Cardinals to attack too. I guess the little fish want to attack the shark. The shark always wins Joe Maddon. The Cubs are riding their hottest streak since the early 2000's, and you're still 6 games back in the division. You guys are actually third in the division behind the Cardinals and the Pirates. But, the way you talk and the way the media talks about the Cubs, you'd think that they were in the first place. That's not the case. And how arrogant are you going to be if, the way it looks now the Cubs and the Pirates will be playing in the one game playoff, you guys lose the play in game to the Pirates? You already had your second baseman break the leg of the Pirates starting shortstop with a dirty, illegal slide, and you guys still may lose that game. If the Pirates win, are you going to call them out and say you don't care for the way they run their organization?

Well, let's look at the organization that hired you last offseason. The way the Cubs got you to be their manager is some of the shadiest shit I've ever seen or heard in my life. How many back alley deals were made? How many people in Tampa did you screw over so you could take this Cubs job? You are about as low class as they come Joe Maddon.

I hope you guys do beat the Pirates in the play in game and have to face the Cardinals in the division series. It will be that much sweeter when they kick your guys asses in the playoffs. I don't know why you think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread in baseball, and I hope you get crushing defeats in the playoffs with the Cubs, just like you did when you were with Tampa. You, Joe Maddon, are a scumbag and you deserve the worst of sports outcomes.

You're an arrogant asshole.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of the X Millennial Man podcast. The only thing he will defend more than his teams are his children, and a good steak. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

In an era of bad sports announcers, Cris Collinsworth is the worst

Mic to be used for analysis, not opinion

My beloved Packers played the Seahawks on Sunday Night football last night, and as a fan I of course was tuned in.

It was a pretty good game. Green Bay outplayed the Seahawks for three quarters, with the Seahawks briefly taking the lead early in the third, but the Packers eventually won the game. I was happy with the outcome, it's always great when your team wins, but that's not the point of today's blog. Today I want to talk about my dislike for Cris Collinsworth.

He's a god awful football announcer. I have problems with a lot of different commentators, but Collinsworth is the worst. I watch a lot of college football, so I've grown to dislike guys like AJ McDonough and Chris Spielman. They always seem to do Michigan games, and I am always upset when I see them calling the game. Lee Corso, who a lot of people like, is unwatchable to me. He's a gimmick. He was a tremendous failure as a coach and, in my opinion, he's much worse as a TV personality. I couldn't care less about his "pick of the day" bull shit. Take pretty much anyone from ESPN for that matter. Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden couldn't be more annoying calling Monday night games. They act like two best friends that speak a language only the two of them understand. It's pretty unpleasant. With college basketball on ESPN you have morons like Digger Phelps and Dick Vitale. Digger Phelps is a poor mans Lee Corso, and I've been sick of the "Dickie V" character for a decade now. Jay Bilas is just as bad. Whenever anyone bad mouths Duke, his alma mater, he's quick to defend them. I'm sorry, but if you're going to be an analyst on TV, you can't have a favorite team. You're not doing your job fairly. Same thing can be said for Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon. I watch "PTI" everyday, but the two of them are completely biased for players and teams they like. Wilbon won't say a bad thing about anyone from Chicago, or any team from Chicago. Take the recent Patrick Kane story. He plays for the Blackhawks, and was accused of sexual assault this offseason. Wilbon hasn't said one bad thing about him because, as he put it, "we don't know all of the story yet". That's horse shit. If he played for any other team in hockey you'd say he needs to be suspended, if not kicked out of the league. Kornheiser is just as bad with East Coast teams. Anyone from New York gets a pass, except for the Knicks, and he is a huge fan of all the professional teams in Washington. Forget the fact that the NFL team from Washington is terrible and the Wizards, Capitals and Nationals never live up to expectations, he still defends them to the high heavens and jumps all over teams that aren't on the East Coast for being chokers. It's such a joke.

But, with all these terrible, biased announcers and TV personalities I've mentioned, Cris Collinsworth takes the trophy for most insufferable. He is so in the bag for the Seahawks, it's hard to listen to him call a game. I'll get to last night in a minute, but let's look at last season. He and Al Michaels, I like Al Michaels and feel bad for him that Collinsworth is John Madden's replacement, called the first game of the 2014 season. It was also Green Bay and Seattle. Seattle was coming off a big Super Bowl win over Denver and you would have thought that Collinsworth was part of the team. Everything he said was praise for the Seahawks. They were the greatest defense ever, even better than the 85 Bears he said. Marshawn Lynch was the second coming of Jim Brown in his opinion. Russell Wilson was the second coming of John Elway. It was made worse by the fact that Seattle beat Green Bay pretty handily in that game last year. Collinsworth couldn't have sounded happier. Everything was praise for how great of a team the Seahawks were last season. And, that was the case since they made it to the Super Bowl, which he called with Al Michaels. Collinsworth sounded on edge the whole game. You could clearly tell that he was pulling for and wanted the Seahawks to win this game badly. Every time the Patriots scored, Collinsworth would make a claim that Seattle blew a coverage, or that New England got away with a penalty. It was never that New England was outplaying them for most of the night, it was something Seattle or the refs did wrong. He never pointed out the fact that Tom Brady picked apart Seattle's secondary. The Patriots dinked and dunked their way up and down the field all game, but you'd never know that if you listened to Collinsworth. No praise for New England during the game. Seattle had a chance to win that game as we all now know. As they drove down the field, with one of the luckiest catches I've ever seen, Collinsworth sounded almost giddy calling this drive. Then the infamous one yard line pass happened. You guys remember the face that Richard Sherman made when Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson (behold beauty)? I bet that Collinsworth wasn't just making that same face, I bet he was crying. He sounded audibly upset that the Seahawks lost that game. You can't pick sides when calling games as an announcer, especially in the Super Bowl. It's fine to have a favorite team, we all do, but when you do TV, you CANNOT be biased. It's unfair to all the watchers.

Last night was probably the worst I've ever heard from Collinsworth. Once again, whenever Green Bay did something good, or drove down the field, or stopped Seattle's drives, it was never because the Packers did something right, it was Seattle doing something wrong. When Seattle took the lead in the third, he sounded like a proud father, heaping praise on Wilson's performance. Wilson played well in the game last night, but he threw a crucial interception on a screen pass. A linebacker dropped into coverage and picked him off one handed. The linebacker fumbled at the end of the play, Green Bay clearly recovered the ball, but that's not what happened in Collinsworth's perspective. First, he claimed the running back that the screen was set up for, didn't show himself quick enough to Wilson. Then, the line left their blocks too quick. Then, what a lucky interception he kept saying. Finally, he was convinced that the Seahawks recovered the fumble. He insisted, even after the game, that the refs blew that call and cost them the game. Never mind the fact that right after the turnover Aaron Rodgers, and more importantly, James Starks drove the Packers right down the field for the go ahead touchdown and two point conversion. The Packers would later add a field goal to make it a ten point lead and they stripped Fred Jackson with thirty seconds left to seal the game. But, after it was all said and done, you would have thought that the Seahawks got screwed over by the refs if you listened to Collinsworth. He's the worst kind of announcer. Not only does he have a team he roots for, but he openly roots for them while calling their games on national TV. That is unacceptable. He needs to stop with the Seahawk love and do his job correctly. I long for the days of Keith Jackson and John Madden calling games, but, unfortunately, we seem to be moving into an era of commentators openly rooting for teams while they call games. Collinsworth has started it, and it's only going to get worse from here.

That's a bummer.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing. He does not have any strong religious beliefs, yet he does think God wanted the Packers to win because that is what matters in the world. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.