The question before the season was whether, for Lamar Odom, a return to L.A. might also mean a return to being a decent NBA player. The early results aren’t promising. Here, he misses badly on a jump hook, and Ronny Turiaf reacts on the bench.

This is the enthusiasm that Nate Robinson, in his eighth year in the NBA, brings to a preseason game. It’s a beautiful thing. (Naturally, David Stern wishes to kill it.)

I wish I knew Nate’s secret. Perhaps it’s the same as Max Fischer’s. (Max’s secret, for those who don’t wish to watch the clip, is to find something you love to do and do it for the rest of your life. Like this.)

Today, the regular season begins, and Nate turns his stereo up to 11. I am tempted to do the same.

Welcome back, NBA. It’s  been too long.

Why did Barack Obama cross the road?

To detain the chicken indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer!!!

I suppose I shouldn’t knock it without having seen it, but I never understood the point of Gus Van Sant’s shot-by-shot remake of Psycho. (Also, Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates seems like a disservice to both of them.) When it came out, I thought, why would anyone put all that effort into just repeating something, right down to the very last shot?*

Well, now I know. Below you will find a remake done right. Kudos to the filmmakers–genius concept, masterful execution.

For good measure, here it is, side-by-side, with the original.

*Apparently, Van Sant’s version is slightly different. He added a masturbation scene. Which is appropriate.

The glory that is Jersey Shore has me looking forward to Thursday nights with a heretofore unknown fervor. (Hear that, Huxtable? Lemon?). I’m drawn like a moth to the flame, or, as Ronnie would put it, like a fly to shit. (That’s how women are drawn to him when he takes his shirt off, fyi.)

Thus, the names, faces, and–yes–situations of the Jersey Shore roommates are rattling around my head all day long. Snooki is never far from my thoughts, though if my fiancee has her way, the one they call Snickers will remain far from our wedding reception. (I maintain that $2k + travel costs is a small price to pay for the raise-the-poof back walkover.) I see Pauly D’s hair in shaving brush bristles and shrubberies. I’m never quite certain howw many ‘w’s are in a given word. But looming above them all is the one who has a full-time job for all those whose occupation is hatin’, the man, the legend, The Situation (nee Mike Sorrentino). He has so permeated my subconscious that, this evening, as I walked to the gym, I found myself singing to myself “I just dropped in / To see what situation The Situation is in.”

This of course is a paraphrase of the hit by The First Edition, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)”.  (Question: Is it only fair (given principles of nomenclature and the like) to consider New Edition the next iteration of The First Edition? If so, does that make Bobby Brown Kenny Rogers? Consequently, was Wyclef usurping when he covered “The Gambler”?)

Returning to The Situation, it seems that this new tribute ditty deserves a psychedelic Situation-starring vid to match the Lebowski dream sequence set to the First Edition hit.

Finally, also on The Situation tip, I just now got around to watching him and Snooki on Conan, and I must say, I was utterly disappointed to hear the pedestrian (no pun intended) origins of his nickname. He told Conan that the nickname came from a situation when he was on walking along the Jersey Shore a few years ago and a girlfriend remarked to her boyfriend something like, “that guy has amazing abs.” One of The Situation’s friends then said something like, “looks like they’ve got a situation over there.”

But devoted Jersey Shore viewers will recall that he explained in the first episode that he’s The Situation because his abs are the situation. When he’s in a room, his abs are the situation in that room. No offense intended toward my friends of faith, but this approaches the dizzying, glorious, fearless, sui generis, don’t-need-to-explain-myself circularity of a burning bush that declares itself “I Am That I Am.”

There’s mystery in them there abs, Situation. Let’s keep it that way.

If “they” are Shawn Kemp, they’re at a Wal-Mart in Illinois:

It’s good to see the Reign Man looking slender and healthy. I’ll always remember him that way. My favorite part of Reid’s opus, Sonicsgate, was probably the Kemp highlights. Which isn’t a knock on Sonicsgate. It’s just that, as Bob Slydell might say, “For my money, I don’t know if it gets any better than when Shawn Kemp dunks.” And, yes, I’m apparently stuck in the 1990s. I quote another resident of that decade, one Walter Sobchak: “You’re goddamn right I’m living in the fucking past!”

Photo by Andrew Miller

You may remember Nirav (the dude on the right in the photo above) from his role as “The Shah of Southtown” in Haymaker & Sally. But that was just the tip of his iceberg of talent. The man is a terrific writer, a top-notch litigator, and now a contestant on Jeopardy! Tune in tonight and witness the phenomenon. Lebron’s got nothing on The Shah.