Great Moments in Fantasy Football History

Generally, you get one or two truly great games per season, per sport. Tonight's Ravens/Pats game was one of them. I'm still all a-twitter, but only in part because of the incredible, all-out slugfestI just witnessed. Indeed, while Tom Brady's classic 4th quarter heroics saved a perfect season for his team, they also may have inadvertently set the table for a fantasy football playoff showdown between me and this man, Nick Lunger:




Clinging to playoff contention, Lunger boldly inserted "the other Pats receiver," the middling Jabbar "the Journeyman" Gaffney. By my calculations, the move may have paid off. Desperately needing a formidable 30 points to pull off a stunning upset, sneak into the Fantasy Football playoffs, and set up a showdown with my squad, Lunger's bold insertion of Gaffney looked characteristically foolish until the waning seconds. Like the Pats hopes for an undefeated season, team Lunger was on the ropes, until fate intervened and resurrected them. The unlikely hero Gaffney scored an improbable touchdown in the closing moments--as gorgeous a 7-yard reception as these eyes have seen. A grand moment in Pats history, and a great moment in Fantasy Football history.

Returning to Mr. Lif

I hate lifting weights. I love playing basketball. My physique reflects this. But, with winter upon us, the balling has been limited to my corporate 4-on-4 squad, so all gym activity has been of the begrudging weight-room variety. The silver lining: a hip-hop influx in my ipod, with the finest MC I have heard in this city, Mr. Lif, taking center stage.

A cogent argument could be made that Mr. Lif is Boston's flat-out best performer. He's a tireless, dedicated rapper and a commanding performer; he is unafraid of taking risks creatively and is deeply committed to his craft; and he rewards the loyalty of his fans by steadfastly promoting Boston and making himself accessible to his fans.

As I write this, I recall that I wrote an overly-serious review of Mr. Lif's "band" The Perceptionists, way back in the early days of this blog, where I alluded to many of these things. Well, much as I enjoyed that record, the latest disc that I'm shamelessly plugging is I Phantom, which has been my album of choice for physical activity lately.

I Phanom is a well-made doozy in which Lif's urbane lyrics are propelled by pounding, kinetic, party-ready beats. By keeping Lif front-and-center throughout, it beautifully showcases his strengths as an MC: his contagious respect for hip-hop as an art-form , his tasteful approach to record-making (zero filler, lean production), and his gift for communicating personal struggles, tribulations, and ideas through clever, populist rhymes. Lif's lyrics manage to be both highly sophisticated and pretense free, and these tracks--funky, esoteric, lively--keep things moving along without diluting any of his lyrical barbs. Lif brilliantly exploits hip-hop's potential to both communicate a message and fuel a party. Sometimes you want to discuss Iraq, but sometimes you just wanna announce that you just kicked your friend's ass in FIFA 98.



One of Boston's finest ambassadors, the underground icon Mr. Lif plays the Middle East on Dec. 14th. His return home coincides nicely with my recent rediscovery of the hip-hop genre.