Youth Basketball

A couple weeks ago, I found out that a local basketball program for middle schoolers was looking for Princeton students to volunteer to coach. In what I am sure will stand as the best decision of my college career I signed up. I also recruited an old middle school friend, Bill Foran, to coach with me. Bill and I played on the same YMCA team, "The White Aggies", and he single-handedly carried the team to a championship on the strength of his unbelieveably consistent baseline lay-up play.

We had our first practice today. It was really fun; I will be posting more on Saturday after our first game. For now let me just say that Bill Foran was born to coach youth basketball. I am quite happy to stand back and let him work his magic.

In other news, someone has written "stop..." on my white board, and this is causing me to have a nervous breakdown. Stop what?! I think I'm going to just stop doing everything and see if that makes them happy. But how will I know. If the person that wrote that is reading this, can you please tell me what to stop. It would save me a lot of grief.

My week 2 podcast is up and running at click here for virus. I'm just kidding, you can click it. Enjoy!

Kip Knight: The King of Vacations?!

My dad prides himself on his ability to plan a good vacation. For a number of years at least, it seemed true. When I was a kid, he orchestrated successful trips to Yellowstone, Montana, and New York City, all of them free, thanks to a glut of frequent flier miles accumulated through the policy of "Never Say No to the Bump!". Getting bumped was a favorite past-time of my family's, and every trip on an airplane was preceeded by a trip to the front desk to ask the inevitable question, "So how's the plane looking today"

"Quite full actually"

These words were music to my dad's ears and as well as mine; I was well-trained to love getting bumped. Looking back, I'm not sure why. I never paid for the airplane ticket, so it made no difference to me if we paid for it or not, but still it somehow felt good to win a tiny victory over the airlines. In hindsight, it is easy to see that it was my family's frugality that started the downfall of the airlines. Because the entire state of Montana has but one airport, we got bumped every flight, and literally never paid for a ticket. This was good, too because it meant that our vacations lasted that much longer. For a kid, this was enjoyable; back then, my brother and I were naive and didn't know that Montana was a state to be mocked and not enjoyed.

When we moved to England, my dad's track record only improved. We visited countless European countries and the action was non-stop. He would schedule 5 museums in a day, and four countries on a trip. I was even able to overlook the catastrophic trip of Prague when a trip to Paris was right around the corner.

Back in America, Kip had a hard act to follow, but uncovered a new solution that would all but guarantee his legacy: the ski vacation. The whole family loved to ski, though one of the flock would later go astray (Chris and his snowboarding). Still he'd found something that everyone could enjoy, and for awhile everything seemed ok.

But recently, things have started to go wrong. The first big misstep came this September, when we were taking Chris to school. I didn't have to be at Princeton for awhile, so he decided that we should spend some time seeing Pennsylvania had to offer. The answer now is clear: not much.

We first visited Hershey Pennsylvania, a pathetic little town not fair from Lehigh. It was in Hershey, of course, that a Mr. Hershey once said, "let us create a chocolate factory and fill the world with delicious treats" and shortly thereafter, "now let us create an incredibly boring tour of that factory. Only its not the actual factory it is a PRETEND FACTORY, created solely for the purpose of that tour."

The Hershey Factory Tour was full of people who I pray were gathering evidence for their upcoming obesity trial against the company. The actual tour contained some of the most hilarious propaganda I've ever come across. For example, the jungle from which Hershey collects their cocoa beans is apparently pristine and lush, untouched by the human hand. They would also have you believe that no rodents have ever accidently gotten mixed in with the Hershey's Kisses, which we all know is simply not true.

Outside the rich chocolate hell of Hershey, my dad was in great need of redemption. And so, he decided that we would go to Gettysburg. For those of you who don't know Gettysburg holds the impressive distinction of being the one place in America worse than Hershey. We bought a 3 hour (!) compact disc and embarked on a self-guided tour of the many battlefields. For anyone considering a trip to Gettysburg, let me save you considerable time and money. The battlefields in Gettysburg are large grass fields. Yes they are quite large and yes some even contain picket fences, but that's about it! People often bemoan the state of America, nothing that the more people go to Disney World each year than Gettysburg. Let me be the first to say that this is a distinct sign of improvement!

The final leg of our journey was to Amish country. I'll let that sentence speak for itself.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Kip achieved a minor redemption with a mini family reunion in NYC. Some might question the decision to return to the NBC studio tour, which we had been on before, but this was a minor error in comparison, and was redeemed by two things that happened on it:
1. Kip and Chris managed to get seperated from the tour group in the FIRST MINUTE of the tour. Despite continued prodding, neither would confess how this happened.
2. A demented old woman kept harassing both our tour guides. At one point Jay Leno's name was mentioned, at which point she screamed "WHO?!". I later found out that she was taking notes.

Next is a trip to Mamoth, which should completely redeem Kip. Let us not forget that brief, perilous moment, though, when everything went so terribly wrong. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "Remember the Amish!"

Podcast

My stranglehold over the internet grows ever-stronger. Today, at the urging of countless fans (unless you can count to 1), I have posted a podcast of my weekly radio show: America's Favorite DJ Show feat Tom Knight. You can listen to or download the show here:

http://ttknight.podomatic.com/

I'm also trying to get it onto iTunes, although it has to pass the inspection of some mean Apple man, and I haven't been kind in my recent newspaper columns. Hopefully he doesn't read the "Daily Princetonian". Also, I probably shouldn't have given this as the description of my show:

This is a show that contains no illegal songs, or copyright violations. Nope, nothing to look at here. Just move along officer.

Will I make the cut? Very soon we shall see!

The Worst of Tom Knight

Well, I just got an e-mail from my "boss" at the newspaper and apparently they will not be "needing my services" this week. What a shame, because I had a HILARIOUS article all about socks ready to go. It was literally just a little story about socks. And funny. And it contained words and paragraphs. And punctuations at appropriate stuff. And the woman that wrote EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES is writing a new book all about manners. One of the manners is not correcting peoples grammar. It's just not polite. Another of the manners is not being that woman, and another is having a life and not writing a book about punctuations, which is just a complete waste of time.

I apologize for the incoherent nature of the preceding paragraph. I blame the increase in ADHD diagnoses.

I know that the faithful readers of my newspaper column are going to be going through "Tom Knight withdrawal" without their fortnightly dose of my column, and this is actually a pretty serious condition. Symptoms include crippling diarrhea and sore throat. So, here you have it: a column that I wrote three weeks ago, that even I deemed "not good enough" to make the cut. For anyone that reads my column with any regularity, you will know that this article must be REALLY bad. I wrote two articles in a row on iPods for heavens sake.

Note: You may have noticed that a really hilarious article I posted to the blog about a certain eating club has been removed. This article was removed in light of some surprising information that I obtained, namely that certain people in said eating club actually read my blog. Not wanting to burn any bridges while I'm standing on those bridges, I decided to remove that post until a certain "date" in the "near future". If this made no sense, then please to ignore. Just know this--further hilarity on the way. As if you didn't already expect that.

So without further adon't here is the article "they" don't want you to see:

Michael Brown Stinks So Much
By: Thomas Knight

I just don't see what the big deal is.

This past week Michael Brown, former FEMA director, has received much criticism for a series of e-mails that he wrote during the Katrina disaster. Though the topics of his missives vary from dog-sitters to fashion tips, the rallying cry from “the left” seems to be a clear, if somewhat juvenile—“Down with Brown!”

Well, I beg to differ. Anyone who takes the time to actually examine Brown's e-mails, will uncover a hero at work; a man engaged in fierce battle with the forces of nature. To paraphrase Bush, Brownie was doing a heck of job.

In one e-mail, a FEMA worker, Marty Bahamonde, wrote Brown to describe the desperate situation in New Orleans and seek guidance from his leader. Brown's response was short and sweet, “"Thanks for update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" Though the syntax leaves something to be desired, the message is clear. Brown craves information, and he is grateful for an update! As November 30 draws near, we would do well to learn a lesson from this man and his “thanks” giving.

The second half of this note is where we really get a glimpse of what makes Brown tick. It is too easy to dismiss his question here as an example of his uncertain leadership, and miss the real significance behind his words. Michael Brown is a master of the Socratic method, and he knows that, were he to simply reveal the solution to the Katrina crisis, Marty wouldn't actually learn anything. What kind of FEMA director would that make him?

"He needs much more that [sic] 20 or 30 minutes, we now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise [sic], followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you," wrote Brown Aide Sharon Worthy in another Katrina email. If we set aside Sharon's decidedly unworthy grammar and spelling, it's clear that she makes a valid point. Anyone who expected Brown to complete an entire dining experience in 20 minutes was simply being unrealistic. I recently dined at the Olive Garden. and it was 45 minutes just to get a table. Furthermore, traffic at the time must have been awful, considering the nasty weather.

Worthy also gave the following helpful advice a few days later, "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working.” This one is a no-brainer. Not only do rolled up sleeves give the appearance of hard work, but in case Brown ever visited the flooded area, it would ensure that his sleeves would be less likely to get wet. Also, let's face it, rolled up sleeves look really cool. For a self-proclaimed “fashion god” like Brown, this would clearly be an important factor.

Just when did Michael Brown decide that he was a so-called god of fashion? If you guessed not during Hurricane Katrina, then you were wrong.

As you probably know Brown is no longer in charge of FEMA, which means that the talents of a great leader are being wasted right now. Might I recommend some type of job for him in Iraq. We can give him a Blackberry. I'm sure he'll have a lot to say.

Birthday Song

I'm so happy. I just checked Wikipedia and the #1 song in America when I was born was "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News. I love that song!

Check out what song as playing on American radios everywhere the day you were born:

Birthday Song

New Song

Amie

All The Wrong Reasons- Thoughts on The Simpsons

In Middle School I read an article, in the school's god-awful student paper, that has stuck with me to this day. It was only about five hundred words, but had three authors, all of them popular girls. It was about The Simpsons, though I forget the title. It was probably something like, "The Simpsons is, Like, So Lame".

It was some of the most atrocious journalism ever published, worse even than Maureen Dowd or Thomas Friedman (though admittedly not much). The girls' prose was meandering and vague, but their general point was this: "We don't understand why this show is considered funny." As a dedicated fan of The Simpsons, I didn't even need to feel angry. These girls had decided to take on one of the greatest achievements of our generation and their greatest argument was that they didn't get it?

There were a couple of guys, however, who didn't feel this way. Their response came in the form of a rebuttal, "The Simpsons is an Awesome Show!!!", which, if anything, was worse than the article that prompted it. The guys got all the facts wrong, claiming that Homer was named after the author of The Odyssey, and then using this as evidence of the shows intellectualism. If they had done 5 minutes of research they would have known that Homer is simply the name of Matt Groening's dad, just as Lisa is his sister, and Marge is his mom. But I can forgive this. Back then the internet hadn't been invented and the DVD was just a glimmer in the eye of some Japanese guy, so these facts were a bit harder to come by

The real problem, then, was that the guys completely missed the point of the show. I should mention that these guys were, like the girls, quite popular and quite stupid, so their idea of a good Simpsons joke was Homer falling down a staircase and saying "d'oh". Don't get me wrong, I'm as big a fan of "The bit my bottom and now my bottom's big" as the next guy, but that wasn't really what the show was about. What did make the show great was stuff like this, which comes at the end of Streetcar!, the musical adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire that the town of Springfield puts on in season 4:

Cast: You can always depend on the kindness of strangers. To pluck up your spirits, and shield you from dangers...
Blanche: Now here's a tip from Blanche you won't regret...
Cast: A stranger's just a friend you haven't met. You haven't met. STREETCAR!

How could anyone get Tennesse Williams so wrong? The scene seemed like pure, impossible fiction until I read that newspaper article, and realized that people get it that wrong all the time.


The ultimate insult was the final article that appeared in the school paper a few days later, written by the girls that had started the whole contorversy. In it, they completely retracted their initial opionion and went on to lavish praise on a show, which, only two days ago, they just didn't get.

What was the cause for their turnaround? They claimed to have watched an episode after reading the rebuttal, and quickly realized the error of their ways. Their excuse was weak. I knew right away that they had seen an article written by some popular guys, and they saw their chance to do some social networking. It didn't matter if they liked the show or not. As long as they claimed to like it, it gave them common ground, and a chance to become even more popular.


A couple years ago, when "The Simpsons Fan Club" was still a thriving, powerful organization, I chose to play an episode about censorship, entitled "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge". This episode is a true masterpiece, definitely one of the most politically charged Simpsons. And it's extremely funny.

In it, Marge protests and effectively shuts down the pointlessly violent "Itchy & Scratchy", but refuses to do the same when Michelangelo's David comes to Springfield. As the show reaches it's important climax, the bell rang and all but three of us ran out of the room. It was then that Matt Sauter, Mr. Warren, and I watched the following scene in which Marge and Homer visit the statue alone:

Homer: Well, there he is. Michelangelo's `Dave'. Pretty soon, every boy and girl in Springfield Elementary School is going to come and see this thing.
Marge: Really? Why?
Homer: They're forcing 'em! [laughs]

I felt like a professor must feel when his students rush out of class at the end of a lecture, before I had finished speaking. It didn't feel good. What point was "The Simpsons Fan Club" if there was only three real fans in it? But we kept it going. We provided an important service to the school for 2 1/2 years, and, maybe, because of us, there is an SMES kid somewhere who can watch the Simpsons looking for more than catch phrases.

In closing let me say that anyone who says that Family Guy is a better show than The Simpsons is not my friend. Really, I want nothing to do with you. Family Guy is a very, very mediocre show, that pretty much does all the lame stuff in the Simpsons, without any of the comedic skill. My number one complaint about Princeton is probably the number of people who like Family Guy here. I can see what appeals to people about Family Guy. It's a big, dumb comedy with about 10 jokes a minute. But I think we need to ask for something more than that.

Maybe this comes off as popous, or pointless, or long-winded. Oh well. This much I'm sure of. Somewhere, on the campus of some junior college, are two guys I went to Middle School with, watching Family Guy, and laughing like crazy.

Acid 4.0 vs. Sovay

For some reason, my awesome Acid 5.0 software stopped working, which has thrown a wrench into my recording career. In desperation I have downloaded an Acid 4.0 demo version and done my best to make it work. This hasn't gone too well. Not only does this program stop you from recording a song over a minute, it also inserts a loud buzz every 10 seconds to ruin whatever short song you managed to scrap together. Actually, the finished product is an interesting metaphor for my relationship with music and technology. Or something.

You can hear it here.

This American Life

I resisted this show for as long as I could. Chris had found it first and so caving in and listening would have been a sign of weakness. But, knee deep in Chinese flashcards, and in need of audio entertainment, I caved in and visited the show's website, two weeks ago to see what all the fuss was about.

I can't believe I waited so long. From my very first episode, "Notes on Camp", I have stood in complete awe at the stories being told by Ira Glass and friends. I am amazed by this show. "This American Life" is one of those rare discoveries in my life, up there with "The Office" and "The Beach Boys", where I just stand back and marvel at the skill on display, and then get slightly depressed at how good it is, and then just feel grateful that it exists. There are at least 300 episodes of TAL online. I must have listened to about 30 so far. Hopefully the rest will last me until Christmas.

Along with Sufjan Stevens, this makes two big Knight family discoveries for Chris Knight. Is it possible that I, the ultimate trendsetter of the Knight family, am being replaced? Having invented the boop and brought rap music into 30986 Steeplechase, it was inevitable that I had nowhere to go but down. But now the reality is setting in, it hurts bad. I need a new discovery, and fast.

(Of course, Chris seems to have found out about TAL from Mr. Clemmons, and Sufjan from Roland. If I am to stay innovative, I guess the moral is I need to check their blogs more often. Is this possible?)

No Joy in Princeton

I showed up late to the football game. After about 45 minutes of a WPRB presentation on FCC rules and regulations, I had decided that I wasn't going to miss a once-in-a-decade opportunity to hear a thirty year old man tell me, for the tenth time, that shout-outs were a bad thing.

The once-in-a-decade opportunity I was missing was the chance for Princeton football to finally win an Ivy league championship. Thanks to an onslaught of press (practically the entire Friday edition of "The Daily Princetonian" was dedicated to the football team) it is now common knowledge that the football team hasn't won the Ivies in over 10 years. But having beaten Harvard and UPenn, the two perennial favorites, a win over lowly Yale today, would have all but guaranteed an end to this unfortunate tradition.

So I discretely snuck out the back door of the meeting and walked briskly towards the game. On the way over a ran into a girl I know.

"How much time left?" I asked hopefully.

"2 Minutes"

"What's the score??"

"14-7"

I couldn't understand how someone could abandon a defining moment in their college career with two minutes left. I later found out that she had left to watch a club volleyball game, which I think actually makes it worse.

When I showed up, things looked good. Yale had the ball on the 34 yard line, but there was only 1:30 left on the clock. And before long it was 4th down for Yale, 4th and goal, and they had to go for it. And they scored. 14-14.

I stuck around, despite the obvious fact that I was jinxing the team, because if we were gonna storm the field, then I was gonna be there. The field was never stormed. Two interceptions and 1 minute of game time later, Princeton had lost.

Though the campus had seemed filled with anticipation before the game, it didn't seem to be filled by any sort of melancholy at the result. Even right after the game, students jovially discussed Pokemon and Digimon Cards. But maybe those weren't University students.

Some of the football players looked pretty depressed, and I'm certain my former roommate, Brett, is among them. I thought of a good plan to cheer him up. Before the game all the students wear wearing "BEAT YALE" buttons. My joke is to write "by" in between the two words, so it says "BEAT by YALE" and then he could wear it as a little ID badge. Just kidding Brett, please don't hurt me.

This was homecoming week and Quad, my eating club, celebrated by serving an elaborate buffet for all the alumni that would be on campus. The buffet raised a lot of questions for me, such as why does Quad have a chocolate syrup fountain? This is a club whose steak tastes like, and possibly is, old shoes. This is a club that regularly runs out of skim milk. It is your duty to serve me good food and skim milk Quad! My parents pay you good money for that skim milk. They do not pay you for a stupid fountain that spews chocolate syrup. That is a stupid, stupid thing that noone wants. I watched that stupid fountain for half an hour and not even one person used it. Not one person! I just checked and we can sell that bad boy for at least 300 bucks. Thats 100 gallons of skim milk baby. Let's get the ball rolling on this one, and not everything today will have been for nought.

Just Lose It

Just now, in music class, I completely lost it.

We were supposed to have prepared some singing exercises for class, but nobody, NOBODY, had even glanced at the music. So, when he asked us to sing these exercises, things got extremely ugly. It was truly pitiful. And hilarious.

The first person to go was an Asian kid named Wiley. He started about two octaves above his range, and it got higher from there. But things would soon get worse. Observing the train wreck of Wiley, the teacher decided that it would help if two people sang at the same time. So now, instead of one painful melody, we had two, going in and out of tune, clashing, at times in odd, painful disonance.

It was at this point that I started to crack up. People had already been laughing beneath their breath, but were able to keep things under control. I was not so lucky. I started giggling and suddenly I knew I was doomed. I tried to cover my face, to think sad thoughts, to just not laugh, but this only made it worse. At this point I was laughing very hard to the point of crying.

The teacher decided to press on, aware of the hopelesness of the situation, but trying to punish us for our failure to prepare. The next kid to sing was a short guy named Neil, who sings like a Gregorian monk. I was gone. I screamed like a little school girl. It's hard to explain to someone that hasn't been through this, but I think everyone in their life has. I simply had no control over my body. Desperate I grabbed a pencil from my backpack and stabbed myself repeatedly in the hand. This had no effect.

It was now my turn to sing. The teacher pointed to a group of three of us and told us to start. We didn't even get a single note out. I started laughing like a hyena and the two other people in my group started cracking up too.

I got control eventually, but it was too late. The fun had been had. The damage was done.

Regarding the Rock Snob

I used to think I was a rock snob. I didn't own a single "Sublime" CD. I scoffed at SMES kids who were happy with Blink 182. Nobody is happy with "Blink 182", I thought, you only think you're happy. Half-jokingly I named "Self Portrait" as my favorite Dylan album, thinking that it made me seem deep and mysterious.

Then I met Dan Ruccia.

Dan Ruccia worked at WPRB, the campus radio station where I now have a show. I'm sure if he ever got a glimpse of my music he would have had a good laugh, though this is pure conjecture as I never even saw him smile. Dan couldn't stand acts like "The Arcade Fire" or "The Shins". He dismissed them as "hipster", but what he really meant was that they had too many fans.

Dan was music director for the station for a year, and probably the most active reviewer in its history, so I got a good glimpse of what he looked for in music. I can tell you that one of his favorite bands of 2004 was Man Man, a motley crew of homeless men, screaming and playing trash cans. I can also tell you that he dismissed Sufjan Stevens, out of hand, claiming that he "lacked bite". There had to be something wrong here.

The problem here was that Dan was a rock snob. Not the faux-rock snob glorified by Chris Knight in a recent article, "The Plight of the Music Snob". Dan was the uber-snob that allow bands like "Xiu Xiu" to exist. He simply couldn't like acts with fans, or at least admit it. Before X & Y I used to confess to close friends that I liked Coldplay. Dan would sooner fall on a samurai sword than to let those words escape from his lips.

Being around Dan made me feel uncomfortable. One time I was starting a new show when he was in the room. Seeking approval, I grabbed the new "Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds" cd, entitled "Abbatoir Blues & The Lyre of Orpheus".

Nonchalantly, I asked, "Is this any good?"

"Yeah," he said.

So I loaded the disc and selected a track. The second it started playing, Dan said, "Oh, you chose the single"

Ok, first of all, someone like Nick Cave probably doesn't even release a single, and, even if he did would it make a difference? It's not like I was spinning "Stairway to Heaven"; this is a song that 99.9% of America had never and would never hear. And yet it wasn't enough for Dan. He was only happy with the most unpopular. It didn't matter that the track I chose was probably the best on the CD. Quality, to Dan, was an afterthought.

My interactions with a real rock snob led to some serious introspection. If this was how I saw Dan, was this how others saw me? The rock snob, even if he is right, is doomed to a lonely life. I would like Nickelback, I decided. People would like me.

I couldn't like Nickelback.

This is an unfinished story. Right now, I am in limbo, refusing to submit to the rock snobs or the rock idiots. If I asked the rock snobs, though, they would probably say that I've already made up my mind and offer me a Nelly CD. If I asked the rock idiots, they would probably get confused and vote for George Bush. Then I would tell them it wasn't an election year, which only complicate the situation.

All this has left me with a sour taste in my mouth when it comes to rock music. Maybe it's time to consider the alternatives. I've heard good things about Jazz.

The Dreaded 50th Post

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't blogged in a long time. A really long time. I would probably guess that probably noone is even reading this, due to the fact that I haven't blogged in such a long time. Which raises an interesting metaphysical question, in the vein of the tree of falling in the wood.

But today I cruised onto Roland Allen's blog, and found that I had been added as a link. This is a pretty big deal for me. You see, for quite some time my brother has had a link for his blog on Roland's site. Not that Chris didn't deserve it, but as the guy that had got him into the blogging world I was jealous. Now that the link is there, I prepare to let the hits roll in.

Another thing that had me hung up is that this is my 50th blog entry. I wanted it to make it special, epic, something that people would tell their grandkids about. I realize now that every one of my entries is like that, so why worry about the 50th?

This is the third or fourth time that I've killed the blog and brought it back to life. It has become a resilient, mighty thing. As you stand, humble in its shadows, add it to your favorite places and prepare for great things. And then eventually abandonment again. But first, great things...