Ty Watches "The Last Dance Parts 3 and 4

I just finished episodes 3 and 4 of "The Last Dance", and just like the first two, this is amazing. This is exactly what I, and all other sports fans, have been craving. The show is starting to dig deeper and deeper into all the things that went into this last run for the 90's Bulls.

Episode 3 was focused on Dennis Rodman's addition to the team. First off, Rodman is a crazy dude, but man was he an excellent basketball player. I do not agree with his politics, he is crazy as I said, he is still a little loony, but man could that dude defend, be an enforcer and grab rebounds. Hearing him talk about his early days in Detroit was like taking a class on how to judge angles on the floor, and I loved every single second of it. When he talked about taking friends to the gym at 2 and 3 in the morning to shoot and miss shots just so he could watch how it came off the rim was astonishing. Talking about watching film of how big time players would shoot, and the way the ball would rotate, was like the coolest lesson I could have learned as a young player. His tenacity on defense, and his willingness to do the little things, the dirty work, it was amazing. But, he did come with a ton of baggage. He started to lose it late in his Pistons career. He really lost it while he was in San Antonio. And, while he gave in to the greater good of the team while playing for the 90's Bulls, he was for sure going through some mental issues. He had, and still has, some serious issues, but I say again, the dude was such a uniquely gifted player. He was also another one of these super small school guys who made it big in the NBA in the late 80's and early 90's, and it was because he was willing he work his ass off. He seemed to work harder than almost anyone else in the league at that time. It was pretty eye opening. My favorite part was when the director showed Rodman, Scottie Pippen and Phil Jackson the video of Jordan reacting to Rodman saying he "needed a vacation". That was epic.

Episode 4 picked up with Rodman on his "vacation", and we got a one on one interview with Carmen Electra, Rodman's girlfriend at the time, and again I have to point out the people they are getting for this doc are amazing, and she described Rodman perfectly. She talked about his constant partying and how much fun he liked to have and even spoke on when Phil, Scottie and MJ came to Vegas to pick him up. That was hilarious, and I imagine what must have been going through her head when this happened. We shifted from there to learn more about Phil Jackson. This episode was his episode. They talked about his childhood, his love of Native Americans, how much he wanted the game to be a team game, his work with Tex Winter, his playing days, his drug use and how great of a coach he was. I have said many times that I think Greg Poppovich is the greatest coach in the NBA ever. But I am now wavering because of the way we see how Jackson worked with the greatest ever. How he got him to buy in. How he made him realize that he needed his teammates to help him. MJ may have liked Doug Collins more, but Jackson was the perfect coach for him and that team. Poppovich has the best system, and it will always work. But, Jackson is the best at dealing with major, major personalities. He knows how to handle super duper stars. And while Jackson is the weird hippy guy, he knows the game very well. Well, he and Tex Winter worked together very well. I feel like this episode was kind of an ode to Winter. He is the genius behind the Triangle offense, Jackson was just the face. But, I came away from episode 4 really admiring Phil Jackson. I was also happy because they started to show the real asshole side of MJ in the middle and near the end of the episode. They talked a lot about the rivalry between the Bulls and Pistons back then, and this is when true MJ started to come out. He hated the Pistons, he did what he took to get over that hump, and man oh man does he despise Isaiah Thomas. Again, they showed him a video of Thomas explaining why the Pistons walked off when the Bulls finally beat them, without shaking their hands, and you could see Jordan, who is 57 now, seething with anger. It was another great moment.

"The Last Dance" has been truly wonderful so far, and I fully expect it to continue that way. While this is on, every Monday I am going to write about my thoughts with each viewing. I cannot recommend this doc enough people. It is a wonder. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing, the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast, and the greatest basketball writer on the internet.

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Ty Watches the "Eric Andre Show" Season 4 Episode 9

This past Friday, "The Eric Andre Show" was as great, and as weird, as ever. The show started the same. Andre ransacked the stage. He did his usual destruction of the set. He crushed his drummer and his drummers kit. He absolutely destroyed his desk. He, at one point, was in a fight with a kung fu master, and when he went to hit the kung fu guy, it turned out that he was in a hall of mirrors, a la "Enter the Dragon". Andre loves doing this destruction, and I love to watch it as well.

Hannibal Buress didn't have any fancy entrance this time around, he just walked to stage and sat down. When they were both sitting, Andre asked Buress what to do next, and Buress told him to do the monologue. Andre walked up to the microphone, but when he started to speak, he started to see visions, some weird music played, and Andre fell into a black hole. It was bizarre. When he finally came to, Andre was freaking out, yelling nonsense and looked terrified. When the camera panned over to Buress, he stated, "knock it off with this Burning Man shit!", and the screen cut to the freeze frame "we'll be right back".

They then cut to a pre taped segment featuring the Ranch Dude. Andre's outfit was ridiculous. He had on a Madonna cone bra, a Dr. Seuss hat, some big boots, wild sunglasses and a bikini bottom that looked like a beaver. The back of the bikini was not keeping anything secret. Andre was fully exposed from behind, as usual. The Ranch dude then went on to ask people if they wanted a hit off his ranch bong, he played a fake double guitar and claimed some random guy on the street as his dad. He continued to walk around downtown New York saying completely random things to random strangers. This bit is always funny.

The next part of the show had their first guest. Haley Joel Osment. He came out on stage and looked immediately put off. I don't know if the people that come on realize that this is all a joke, Flavor Flav, I'm taking to you, but Andre is trying to make people uncomfortable. Osment was definitely uncomfortable. Andre was saying random things about how there are no rules on his show. He ripped a piece of paper with the word rules on it, he threw that same piece of paper through a fake window, he then broke a piece of glass with the word rules on it. He did it all. Osment jumped when Andre broke the glass. Then, Andre said they were cutting to a clip from Osment's new movie, but it was a clip of a cow giving birth. Osment was totally put off. Both Andre and Buress made fun of Shamalayn movies. It was a great Eric Andre interview.

Once Osment left the stage, there was another pre taped skit that had Andre walking around a park, dressed like a park ranger. He also had a massive head wound. He was stumbling around telling people that he needed to give a speech, but first, he had to find his falcon. People were legitimately trying to help him, so Andre tried to make them uncomfortable, as he is want to do. He started to tell people that he was a Subway spokesman, and he wanted them to make the bread out of used yoga mats. He kept saying namaste to everyone. At one point, he also peed fake blood. This turned people off right away.

After the park ranger bit, we got our next guest, Dennis Rodman. Man oh man, Dennis Rodman is in tough shape. He was immediately sweating when he got on stage. His words were unintelligible. He kept patting away makeup because of the sweat. He kept deflecting questions about his friendship with Kim Jong Un. At one point, Andre started to have a "dance contest", and instead of getting involved, Rodman started to beat box on the table and egg on Andre. Andre kept going while Buress stood still. Rodman was completely incoherent and either drunk, stoned or both. He looks really, really bad. Near the end of the "dance contest", Buress finally started to dance vigorously. This led to another freeze frame "we'll be right back" screen.

This led us to our final pre taped sketch, and I swear it made me feel like I was on drugs. Andre was dressed like an octopus, but the 8 arms were filled with 8 little people. Andre had some weird voice, and the little people kept talking over him when they entered a fancy restaurant. It was loud, trippy, weird and bizarre. The restaurants patrons were terrified. Andre and crew got kicked out pretty quick. This was the weirdest bit I have ever seen on the show.

When they went back to the set, their final guest was David Alan Thicke. It was Alan Thicke and David Alan Grier dressed in an oversized shirt and singing some nonsense song. Andre and Buress were, at first, looking at this like it was stupid, but they quickly got into it. The end of the show was like an "SNL" ending with rolling credits and everyone smiling and hanging on stage.

This was a very odd, but still, very funny episode. Come back next week for the next review.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is friends with a Kim, and a Jong, but no Un. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

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