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Photo of the Basketball Now: 13 January 2012

Dexter hosted Ypsilanti.

Just as Skyline had a better team than Chelsea, so did Ypsi have a better team than Dexter. The game went much the same way. This photo…

…is not a photo of a Dexter layup. It’s a photo of an Ypsi block. There might have been a few of those.

The Dexter student section has been unusually sedate this year, but it had a solid presence for this game:

Dexter has a decidedly more interesting mascot than my good friends over at Skyline:

If you’re a naval buff, you might be distressed that they spelled it Dreadnaughts and not Dreadnoughts. Why did they do that? I don’t know. I’m from Chelsea, remember? We don’t understand that town over there to the east.

(Seriously, though: if you know why it’s not spelled with an O, enlighten us!)

Referees have a difficult job, and they take more unnecessary abuse from more people than even those nattily-dressed London soldiers who have to stand perfectly still no matter the absurd things tourists do. They should get more respect than they do. (Referees, I mean.) Having said that: come on, basketball referees. Stop standing in my way already.

That shot is okay, but it would’ve been doubly okay had the referee not gone all Stripey McBetterDoorThanWindow on me. I know the referees don’t base their position on the annoying photographer in the front row, but sometimes it seems like they do. Basketball referees of the world: your backs are not unusually photogenic. Please stop placing them in front of my camera. THANK YOU.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 10 January 2012

Chelsea basketball visited Skyline. I made it to Skyline’s football stadium last fall, but this was my first trip to the gym. I already ranted about the school’s name, colors, and mascot in a previous post, so I’ll let you go back and read that if you really want to see an irrelevant guy complain about inconsequential matters.

As for Skyline’s gym: it has its good and bad points. The good: it doesn’t have seating on all four sides, so it tends to look more full than other newer gyms. Since basketball games around here seldom attract large crowds, I prefer this arrangement. Also, the gym has an…exciting sound system. Do you know how many speakers they have in the rafters? You do if you were following my twitter feed that evening. If not: 37. Thirty-seven. Yes, there were so many that I had to count them. It got loud.

The bad: I have only one bad point to list, but for photographers this one point can outweigh any and all good points of a gym. Are you ready? Okay, here it is: it was dark. No, strike that. It was all-caps DARK. The problem wasn’t the number of lights in the gym or even unnecessary and baffling opaque light covers — I’m looking at you, Saline — but instead was the lights themselves. You know how fancy restaurants have mood lighting? Yeah, that’s exactly what the Skyline gym has. It’s like they popped in a few 25-watt soft white bulbs and decided that was good. Was it? No. No it wasn’t.

(For the record, it’s fine for spectators. Just not for photography. And most gyms in the area aren’t much better — if at all. It’s just that I’d hoped for more from an otherwise good gym in a very expensive building.)

The Skyline basketball team is very talented this year, so it was a tough night for Chelsea. This photo sums up much of the evening.

So does this one.

Still, basketball is basketball: no matter how badly you lose, there are always scoring highlights. The only time basketball teams get shut out is when the NBA has a lockout. ZING!

The evening belonged to Skyline, so there was plenty of this:

And at one point in the third quarter, Skyline’s star athlete did this:

That dunk ended up providing me with the funniest photo of the evening:

I did not alter that photo. I laughed out loud when I saw it, but I did not alter it. Leave your captions and/or jokes in the comments.

After getting the crowd fired up with the dunk, he greeted his teammates with a big smile on his face.

This might have been a foul. Maybe just an itty-bitty little tiny one:

With the game well in hand, this player got on the floor, and immediately it became obvious that his teammates’ goal was to help him score. Over and over they passed him the ball and got him shots.

I don’t know why they were so determined to get him points, but when I noticed what they were doing, I started rooting for him to score. (Every time I’ve seen a Chelsea team do something similar, it’s been for a good reason.) Sadly, he didn’t manage to score any points. But every time he put up a shot, the Skyline bench was ready to erupt. It put a smile on my face.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 30 December 2011

The Dexter basketball Christmas tournament wrapped up with both Dexter teams playing in the championship games. First up was the Dexter women’s team facing South Lyon.

Dexter won the game to win its own Christmas tournament. Actually…it might be a holiday tournament. Whatever. I’m calling it a Christmas tournament.

Oh, right. Dexter won.

The men’s championship game featured Dexter and Saline.

Saline wasn’t feeling cooperative, so it didn’t let Dexter sweep its own tournament.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 29 December 2011

Like Chelsea, Dexter hosts a basketball tournament over the Christmas break. I showed up at the gym to watch Dexter and Willow Run share the Christmas spirit through intense competition.

What’s that? What does a basketball game have to do with Christmas, you ask? Well…when they called traveling, we all thought of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem! And when they called a charge, we all thought of the charge Herod gave the wise men to find Jesus! And when they called an illegal screen, we…uh…

Hey, look! Pictures!

I would like to note that the above photo offers me an opportunity to poke some fun at Dexter football. I would also like to note that I am declining to take that opportunity. Let the record show that I have taken the high road once in my life.

Meanwhile, Coach Swoverland would like his team to remember the loneliest number.

Just as I’m a fan of adapting the Bedford mascot to various sports, so am I a fan of adapting Willow Run’s name to various sports. In this instance, wouldn’t Willow Jump be more appropriate?

As a bonus, Van Halen would approve of that name.

Photo of the Hockey Now: 17 December 2011

Chelsea hockey faced…uh…well, it’s complicated. The team they played was an amalgamation of Lincoln, Belleville, and Willow Run. What would you call that? Bellecoln Run? Linlowville? Eh. I prefer to call it Hockey Frankenstein.

Hockey Frankenstein was undermanned. The game wasn’t close.

Remember how I said the game wasn’t close? Here’s visual evidence:

That’s the shot chart from the first period. Chelsea’s shots on goal are on the left; Hockey Frankenstein’s shots are on the right.

Later in the game, Jacob found himself with the puck and open ice through to the goalie.

He set up his shot…

…and put the puck in the net.

Chelsea won the mercy-shortened game.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 16 December 2011

Chelsea basketball faced Bedford. Officially they’re known as the Kicking Mules, but in basketball it’s illegal to kick the ball, so the mascot may require some adaptation to be appropriate. The Dribbling Mules? The Free-Throw Shooting Mules? There are any number of possibilities, really.

Anyway: Chelsea basketball faced the Bedford Fill-In-The-Blank Mules. On that particular evening they must have been the Rented Mules, because Chelsea beat them like…oh, you get it.

“No, see, you have to turn right onto Old US-12. Then you’ll see Thompson’s Pizzeria shortly after you pass M-52.”

Photo of the Hockey Now: 14 December 2011

Chelsea hockey faced Lumen Christi, one of its most strenuously not-so-liked rivals. For a time it looked like Chelsea was going to run — er, skate — away with the game, but Lumen Christi scored a few third-period goals to make it interesting. Regardless, the good guys won.

Who had the answer to the Lumen Christi defense? These guys did.

Get? They’re raising their hands because they had the answ…oh, never mind. I know that was a stretch. Just go with it.

Gravity is a powerful force, but as any good hockey player knows, sometimes it needs some help. The Bulldogs are nothing if not helpful.

Since the Bulldogs did plenty of scoring, they also did plenty of celebrating.

Plenty of celebrating. (The crowd enjoyed it, too.)

See?

The Bulldogs were celebrating more good times than Kool & the Gang.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 13 December 2011

Chelsea faced Flat Rock. Wait, what? No, Flat Rock isn’t Nebraska’s version of Plymouth Rock. It’s a small town in southeastern Michigan. It’s a town where they still actually build actual cars in an actual factory in the actual state of Michigan. It’s also a town that — according to Wikipedia, which is completely reliable all the time no matter what, right? — is home to a Law & Order: SVU actor.

These young fans brought a little extra encouragement for two of the Bulldogs:

Photo of the Santa in an Abandoned Factory Now: 11 December 2011

If you’ve driven down Main Street in Chelsea, you might have noticed a decaying factory building just south of downtown. For decades that factory housed Federal Screw Works, but in 2005 the company shut it down. It’s been maxin’ and relaxin’ ever since, taking up space and looking all hip and run-down like that weird guy at that too-cool-for-school coffeeshop. (However, redeveloping that guy would be a lot easier than redeveloping the old factory site.)

One Sunday afternoon my editor called and wondered if I was free to join her at FSW. She said the University of Michigan was putting on some sort of event there, but she couldn’t really explain it over the phone. I don’t know about you, but I don’t get invited to abandoned warehouses very often — probably because my name isn’t Horatio Caine — so I said I’d be there.

When I arrived, I realized why she couldn’t really explain it over the phone. Here’s an excerpt from the brochure that accompanied the event:

In the collective optic, oscillating between fetishism and lament, ubiquity and monumentality, engagement and distanciation, a state of being and coming undone, the ruin has resurfaced as a site of symbolic appropriation, chimerical exploration, material contestation, and fabricated desire. Welcome to Federal Screw Works.

Later:

Can the self-reflexive cultivation of enthusiasm for the ruin help build support for its transformation; can the pluralistic reimaging of ruin help concerned constituents speculate about alternative futures for a derelict site? In consideration of these questions, Federal Screw staged an event and collective exploration, a first step in a forthcoming master plan for Chelsea Common.

Make of that what you will. To this decidedly non-academic layperson it appeared to be an art exhibition housed in a crumbling factory. It might hold more meaning to all y’all in the academic or art worlds, but I’m just a guy in the taking pictures for money world. I don’t fly in that stratosphere.

When I walked into the factory I was greeted by raucous percussion echoing through the cavernous main room. The source of that percussion? Santa. No, seriously. Santa was playing the drums. What, you don’t believe me? Here’s a picture.

You can get a sense for the level of decay the factory has suffered by the standing water on the floor. The roof, the roof, the roof doesn’t do its job very well anymore.

Here’s the whole scene. If the wall on the right side appears to be a bit newer, that’s because it is. It was hastily constructed after the original wall suddenly collapsed a few years ago.

Okay, fine, that wasn’t actually Santa playing the drums. How do I know this? Primarily because Santa is a jolly old fraud,* but also because his name was in the brochure. His name is Leo Denoyer.

*(Hey, if your Santa-believing child is reading this blog, he’s old enough to know better.)

On the left side of the above photo you can see a low wall. On the other side of that wall was a display of balloons.

This had nothing to do with barrage balloons in World War II, though that would have been a nifty historical reference. The brochure lists the balloon display as “Phytoremediation forest doppelgänger“.

A couple rooms away was a mildly disorienting display that involved optical illusions and disposable shoe covers. (The shoe covers weren’t part of the display. They actually were for covering shoes.)

When I sent the photos to my editor, I provided the following caption for the above photo: “Optical illusions: fraud for your eyes.”

There were people wandering around with cameras, but I have a sneaking suspicion I was the only oddball getting paid to take photos. Here’s one of those other camera people taking a picture of the mildly disorienting display.

The FSW factory is a very large building, and the gentleman in charge indicated they had a very limited budget for the project. This meant most of the building was simply left in its naturally dilapidated state, as seen here:

Though I may not be able to explain the event that was taking place in the building, I can tell you that I was excited to see the interior of the old FSW building. Having lived in Chelsea for 30 years now, and having watched the building slowly decay over the past six years, I’ve long been curious to see the interior of FSW. Now I’ve seen it.

…And, like few others, I’ve seen Santa playing the drums in it.

(In case you’re curious, here’s the article my editor wrote. She did a much better job of making sense of it all.)

Photo of the Basketball Now: 9 December 2011

Chelsea basketball faced South Lyon. Both my editor and I kept getting confused, though, because South Lyon’s uniforms were nearly identical to Saline’s. I’m pretty sure we both referred to them as Saline at least once. Hey, don’t judge: we see Saline much more frequently than we see South Lyon.

For the uninitiated, this is a basketball: