Shirtless Manilow gets axed
Barry Manilow has good cause
lo be a litile hot under the
collar.
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur, the
capital of Malaysia, canceled his re
cently sold-out concert appearances
there for fcaif the American singer
mightriphisshirtoffon
stage, thus violating lo
cal decorum.
It’s not some off-the
wall apprehension. Ap
parently, the Malaysians
warned both Hammer
and Color Me Badd, two
other U.S. acts, to re
main fully clothed, but
the shirts flew away anyhow. So when
Manilow came rockin’ into town, of
ficials didn ’ t want to lake any chances,
and they axed him.
A strange thought indeed is the
picture of Manilow threatening to
throw clothing to a teeming crowd.
He’s never been known to real ly break
it down and get funky. But then, no
one around here has heard from him in
a while, and maybe his style changed
while he traipsed about places like
Malaysia.
Actually, 1 thought he disappeared
in that earthquake that sucked Abba
under the planet’s surface. But per
haps he survived. Perhaps he’s been
brooding all these years, quietly hum
ming, “I Write the Songs,” slurping
down kamika/cs and slowly gelling
into “Wildman” Manilow.
“Here I comes, Malaysia!” he
screamed, buttons spinning around
the yard as he pulled off his shirt. “Git
ready lo sec some skin! Roar!”
There is a lot to be said for per
forming without a shirt. It seems lo be
all the rage in these lawless limes.
A friend of mine invited me to go
to Minneapolis during break to sec
Donny Osmond without a shirt. He’s
touring with a production of the mu
sical “Joseph and His Amazing
Technicolor Drcamcoat.” I didn’t go,
but I thought about it. After all, this is
Donny Osmond — he’s a little bit
country. Or is he a little bit rock ‘n’
roll?
I suppose it doesn’t matter when
you’re not wearing a shirt. Then you
can be anything you want— say, a lot
rock ‘n’ roll and no country or even
the other way around.
I, myself, once performed without
a shirt in a local production of the
same musical Donny is prancing in up
north. Donny, of course, snagged the
part of “Joseph,” the lead, whereas I
was only “Egyptian Guard.’’The great
thing was there were no shirts in
volved in “Egyptian Guard,’’justspar
kling headgear and tan shorts. I also
got to pretend to play a guitar shaped
like an ankh when the Pharaoh sang.
Sometimes I look back on the time
I spent in frontof those audiences, my
shirt nowhere to be found, perhaps
blocks away, for all I knew. Someone
could have taken it or burned it as I
was on stage or hoisted it to the lop of
some flagpole.
All 1 had was that huge ankh in my
hands. No shirt to weigh me down! It
was summertime. The golden rays of
the sun cut through the sky to my skin,
and no sh irt impeded them. I could ’ ve
just taken off right there, run away,
rambled on, a free bird.
I might have given the ankh to
some trucker in exchange for a lift to
the coast. Me and my sequined head
gear on a walkabout. My shirt hun
dreds of miles away and counting.
Oh, yes, I know. 1 know what Barry
was contemplating as he considered
doing the Malaysia gig topless, with
no shirt to constrict his aura.
That scenario, however, is hard for
me to swallow. I feel as though I know
Barry, and I can’t sec him being quite
so bold.
In my younger days, I heard a lot of
Barry because my mom used to play
his albums quite a bit. After a while,
it grew on me. I suppose you might
call me a closet Manilow fan — but
don’t worry, 1 joined a support group
here in town.
I’m not talking aboutBarry’s weird
1980s stuff. What I, and probably a
silent majority of Americans, like is
the 1970s Barry, the Barry we used to
hear crooning on old AM radios. Clas
sic Barry. Young Barry, starting out
in New York City, ready to write the
songs that make the whole world sing.
No one can forget tunes such as
“Copacabana.” I can remember pic
turing the story in my mind: Poor
Lola, sitting in the holiest spot north
of Havana, watching as Tony and
Rico duked it out. And then the
punches flew. Chairs were smashed
in two. There was blood and a single
gunshot, but just who shot who? I still
wonder, to this day.
It saddens me to know that Barry
has to go so far from home to have a
sellout concert. There were years when
Manilowmania would have filled ven
ues across this measly country, but I
guess those times are gone. It’s Kuala
Lumpur or nothing these days.
I would bet if Donny Osmond
trekked down to Malaysia, no one
would bat an eye. He could dance
around in that Amazing Coat of his
with no shirt at all, blowing bugles on
his ice skates or whatever, and people
wouldn’t be so upset. But if Barry
joined the cast as say, an Egyptian
Guard, then all hell would break loose.
The real problem is Hammer and
Color Me Badd ruined it for Barry.
They are the ones who should be
punished. Maybe the authorities could
confiscate Color Me Badd’s extra “d”
or banish Hammer to Lake Edna.
They shouldn’t take out frustrations
on Barry. He has enough frustrations
of his own.
Maybe I’ll invite Barry to come to
our support group. I’d give that man
the shirt off my back.
Phelps is a junior news-editorial major,
the Daily Nebraskan wire editor and a colum
nist.
B-ball shows cultural differences
Finally, football season is wan
ing, making way for the
planet’s true sport — basket
ball.
The sport is sensational in its prow
ess, but I have always found it diffi
cult to watch on television.
After all, how many times can you
watch Michael Jordan
juke a whole team with
one of his magical
moves and say: “Wow!
Unbelievable!”
He’s done it so many
limes now, believe it.
1 don’t think I have
I.Jcvcr watched an entire
basketball amc on the tube. Thai’s
because I’ rather play than watch.
So that’s where this week’s col
umn lifts off.
It’s about the culture of basketball
and how most white dudes and black
dudes see and play it differently be
cause of cultural reasons.
I ain’t kidding. I’ve been playing
ball for years and have noticed a few
things.
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t
traveled around the country gathering
information or anything, but I’ve
played in a lot of different cities and
neighborhoods and cross-sectionally
I’ve noticed patterns.
First off is the parlance on the
court. “Dime” is a smooth pass. “He
got popcomcd,” means an offensive
player fakes a jumper and the de
fender jumps up like a popcorn ker
nel. Clever, eh?
Instead of a jumper, you can take
your man “to the cup,” (drive on him)
and “flush on him,” (dunk), if you
“sky” (jump) high enough, that is.
Or if the inside is loo clogged for
that, shoot the paradoxical layup or
long-range jumper on your man. But
make sure someone is underneath to
rebound “the pill” (basketball) if you
miss.
Who knows, if you make enough
shots your team will keep “feeding”
(passing) you ihc ball, but if you
“brick” (miss) a lot, well...
From the vast sample group I have
observed, I’ve noticed that the differ
ences in play have little to do with
physical prowess.
When 1 was a teen-ager, a lot of the
white dudes I knew who played ball
had goals in their driveways. They
would hang out shooting jumpers on
their shiny rims and taut nets all day.
Soon they became automatic.
These were the dudes in high school
who would make 25 out of 25 free
throws with their eyes closed but
would miss wide-open layups four
out of five times.
We didn’t have private basketball
rims in our driveways. Actually, many
of us didn’t even have driveways. So
by default, we were sort of forced to
play with other people all the lime in
pick-up games at one of the neighbor
hood courts.
The courts were OK, but the rims
never had nets. That didn’t stop us,
though, and when one of us shot a
sweet jumper that sailed straight
through the rim we’d yell, “SWISH!”
for sound effects.
It wasn’t until high school that I
learned basketball theory, as I call it.
Selling picks, screening out your man,
zone defense, switching up, all those
things you do without the ball.
Before then, we just ran and
dribbled around until someone was
open to get the pass or the shot. Pick
or screen and zone defense? Those
concepts were as distant to us as the
twilight zone. It was man-to-man
where we played, and you got open
the best way you could.
What about people wailing for next
game? The etiquette there was to walk
on the court and yell, “I got next!”
Then you would hear someone on
the other side of the gym yell, “I got
next!” Then another dude would yell
the same thing. After a heated debate,
one of the three finally ended up
having “next."
We didn ’ t shoot for the next four or
five or three or sign a “next sheet.”
Like Manifest Destiny, you just HAD
next, and you picked your team; hope
fully the best team of the day because
once you sat down among the 15 or so
other dudes waiting to play, that was
it. Time to go home and watch basket
ball.
One of the last cultural differences
I find most intriguing is the shirt/skin
dichotomy. One team wears shirts,
the other team no shins. No doubt it’s
a reasonable way to decipher which
guys arc on your team. But, I don’t dig
playing without a shin.
That’s because when I grew up, we
never played shirt/skins. Never. Some
how, like a sea lion knows her cubs,
we knew who the five dudes were on
our team even if we all had on white
shirts.
The first time I did play shirts/
skins and some dude told me to take
off my shirt, 1 thought it was peculiar.
It’s just a hypothesis that culture is
at the root of different styles of bas
ketball play, but it has merit.
Why aren’t there more black ten
nis, hockey and golf players? The
answer to that is rooted in economics
and culture.
Ah! How refreshing to welcome
hoop season. Aside from the pure
beauty of the game, b-ball is a won
derful way to shoo away these aca
demic blues we all get about this time
of the school year. I enjoy playing the
game.
Hey, you may see me over in the
rec center one day running in and
around a bunch of dudes yelling: “Feed
me the pill, feed me the pill!”
And see, without the insight of this
column on the cultural aspect of the
sport, you probably would have
thought: “Look at that dude, man.
What an odd way to take medicine!”
Muss is a graduate student studying an
thropology and a Daily Nebraskan colum
nist.
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