Lonely Island Friday: On the Ground

Our invocation of The Lonely Island's "Like a Boss" for the network Commissioner for a Day post seemed to go over pretty well with the young, hip demographic at Blazer's Edge.  As a fun Friday topic we're going to jump into the waters again, exploring more aspects of Blazer fandom using the work of Saturday Night Live's famous alums.

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, The Lonely Island are a comedy music trio best known for their "SNL Digital Shorts".  Often rap or musical parodies, these clips simultaneously lampoon and celebrate modern culture.  The attractive thing about The Lonely Island's work is that they're not standing outside, laughing at their subjects.  Their videos are totally immersed and they play their parts to the hilt, almost as if to say, "Here's what you made us, here's how ridiculous it can get, and you're right in it with us!"  Their songs are typified by razor-sharp satire followed by moments where they just go too far.  At first you want to say, "Yeah...right on!  Preach!"  Then you're like, "Wait...what?"  And finally you're not sure if that was the funniest thing ever or a total disaster.  Bingo!  Social critique.  Life is inevitably both.  In the end all you can do is throw up your hands and laugh...or go crazy.

Today's installment comes from my personal favorite Lonely Island song, "On the Ground".  It's kind of beatnik poem-rap so the lyrics below will be hard to follow rhythmically if you haven't seen the video.  Fortunately it can be found by clicking RIGHT HERE.  (As with most Lonely Island stuff, it's right on the line of NSFW and parts could offend...)  Once you've got the ditty down, come back and enjoy the Blazers version.  Or better yet, set it to play in another window and read along here, changing the lyrics in your head.

Whether you're an outsider or a Portland diehard, here's a peek into the Trail Blazer mindset.  Enjoy, you hipster Blazer fans you!

On the Ground (Portland Trail Blazers Version)

Training camp nineteen 7-6

A man walks up to us and hands us the rights to Moses Malone

"Run faster, jump higher"

Man, we're not gonna let you poison us!

We threw it on the ground

You must think we're a joke

We ain't gonna be part of your system!

Man, put that garbage on another man's team!

.

We got a draft pick back in ‘84

And a dude says, "Here's the best of all time, pick him for free!"

We said, "Man, what we look like?  A charity case?"

We took it and threw it on the ground!

We don't need your handouts

We're all ADULTS!  Please!

You can't buy us, draft pick man!

.

At the conference finals with the so-called Lakers

They hand us Game 7 and say, "You're our dad."

Man, we're not your dad,

This is a ball game

We threw it on the ground!

What, you think we're stupid?

We're not a part of your system!

We're not blood-related, DUH!

.

Some poser hands us Raef LaFrentz' expiring contract

What you want us to do with this?  Trade it?

Announce a big trade with the ground!

We dumped the rest of the team too!

Welcome to the real world, jackass!

.

So many things to throw on the ground like Durant, Roy's knees, and even LMA!

We're all ADULTS!

.

Commissioner Stern brought his refs to our stadium...

GROUND!

Nobody wants your favoritism, phonies!

.

Then the three refs got up

turned out they had some whistles

And they blew them in our faces

We threw up our hands

The phonies didn't let up

Whistling infractions, over and over

We were screamin' and cryin'

The losses kept on coming

The moral of this story is...

You can't trust the system!

Man!

Word.

--Dave (blazersub@gmail.com)