12/28/98 Misc. column The Insville and the Outski MISC., your post-print column for (what the Times Personal Tech section calls) the post-television age, was amused by the double standards and double dribbles in that front-page P-I headline on 12/22/98: "Reign star Enis judges basketball, parenthood." Y'ever see a headline like that about, say, Shawn Kemp? Alas, that P-I story was one of the last written in the local dailies about the Seattle Reign before the team's parent American Basketball League announced its sudden, permanent shutdown, leaving fans as bereft of pro women's b-ball as it is of the men's game. One could lay the blame for the ABL's demise on the rival WNBA, with its megabucks backing, its marketable-superstar orientation, and its stranglehold on sponsors and TV outlets. But a less-discussed factor was the league's management structure. While it claimed to be a grassroots, fan-level outfit, it was really a centralized company which owned all its teams, hired and assigned all its players, and otherwise tightly ran all operations and marketing--just like the Roller Derby, Arena Football, and other assorted marginal team-sports ventures of the past three decades. The graveyard of new team-sports organizations in North America is full of four decades' worth of great and less-great visions, from the American Basketball Association and the U.S. Football League to World Team Tennis and several attempts at indoor soccer. Aside from the American Football League (which got all its teams merged into the NFL in the late '60s), none were long-term successes. (The only current such ventures with a chance at making it are Major League Soccer and the aforementioned WNBA.) None of those attempts found the formula for nationwide popularity and profits; though some tried to find such a formula thru centralized management. A single-ownership league structure (like that of the ABL) can present a unified public image and prevent a single well-heeled team owner from attaining an uncompetitive dynasty situation (like that which ruined the old North American Soccer League). But it also means local team managers can't build their own squads, around personalities or playing styles popular in their own towns. And when league HQ runs out of cash and/or ideas, there aren't local team owners (or buyers) to come up with individual solutions other teams can copy. But for now, the WNBA (with its emphasis on megabucks and celebrity-driven advertising, and its neglect (or worse) of any lesbian fan base) is the remaining structure for women's pro hoops, at least until the parent NBA can no longer afford to subsidize it (which, if there's not even a mini-NBA season, might be more likely and sooner). Wish I had more encouraging news for stranded Reign fans, but a pro league of any sort, especially one with teams scattered across the continent, is an undertaking requiring immense logistics, savvy, and long-term backing. The ABL way didn't work, and neither has just about any other way. THE HOLIDAY TRADITION CONTINUES: For the 13th consecutive year, here's your fantastical Misc. In/Out List. Thanks to all who contributed suggestions via private email and the public Misc. Talk discussion boards; and apologies to those whose board postings I accidentally erased last week. (I think I've gotten the hang of the discussion-board software scripts by now.) As always, this list predicts what will become hot or not-so-hot over the course of '99; not necessarily what's hot or not-so-hot now. If you think every person, place, thing, or trend that's big now will just keep getting bigger, I've got some Tickle Me Elmo dolls to sell you. INSVILLE...........................OUTSKI Apple "PI" laptop computer..........Y2K scare tactics Pipes...............................Cigars "Got __?"..........................."Yo Quiero __" The WB..............................Fox Asian (economic) Flu................"The Long Boom" BBC America.........................PBS Elan................................Panache Linux...............................Windows 2000 Cracked Divx videos.................Pirated MP3 music files Pic-N-Save..........................Pacific Place Saving the Kalakala.................Stopping the Makah whale hunt Digital video camcorders............Furby Dipsy...............................Po Win Ben Stein's Money..............New Hollywood Squares The PJs............................King of the Hill Philosophy..........................Semiotics `Enough Is Enough'..................Christian Coalition Falcons.............................Forty-Niners Lions Gate Films....................DreamWorks SKG New Rocky and Bullwinkle............New Star Wars Felicity...........................Ally McBeal Ed Norton...........................Leo DeCaprio Todd Solondz........................Gus Van Sant Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth).........Meg Ryan Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce..Washington CEO Mammoth Records.....................Universal Music Group Perfect 10.........................Barely Legal Mode...............................Vogue Bento...............................Pan-Asian Cuisine Less Than Jake......................Better Than Ezra Brita...............................Bottled water Fruitta.............................Jones Soda Westwood Village....................University Village Nude shuffleboard...................Pro wrestling Kroger/Fred Meyer...................DaimlerChrysler Bibliofind.com......................Barnes & Noble/Ingram ESPN The Magazine..................Esquire Sympathy for Kathi Goertzen.........Sainthood for John Stanford Last Supper Club....................Dutch Ned's eBay fraud..........................Junk e-mail Independent Film Channel............USA Network Ken's Market........................Larry's Market New Cyclops restaurant..............New baseball stadium Imploding the Kingdome on 1/1/2000..Lighting bridges on 1/1/2000 Sex lotteries.......................Personal ads Pachinko............................Megatouch McSweeney's........................Bikini Lovers..............................Survivors Deliberately obvious toupees........Propecia Female all-instrumental bands.......Lilith Fair singers Pabst...............................Miller Pyramid.............................Redhook Bars subsidized by pulltab sales....Bars subsidized by cigarette ads Black..............................."The new black" Tiffany Anders......................Celine Dion Pinot noir..........................Merlot Psychographics......................Demographics Cubs................................Braves Co-housing conversions..............Condo conversions Mutts..............................Dilbert Teen drinking.......................Pre-teen makeup White Center........................Duvall Death Cab For Cutie.................Dudley Manlove Quartet Mystic pseudo-science...............Fundamentalist pseudo-science Caffe Vita..........................Tully's Hedy Lamarr.........................Marilyn Monroe Tweedy & Popp's (Wallingford).......Reconstruction Hardware Pokeman............................Rugrats South Park (the neighborhood).......South Park (the TV show) Real diversity......................White and/or male guilt-tripping Neo-syndicalism.....................Global Business Network Hungarian operettas.................Raves NBA death watch.....................Apple death watch The Tentacle.......................Downtown Voice Istanbul............................Berlin Sound Transit commuter rail.........Trucks Airstreams..........................Minivans Plane-crash videos..................Animal-attack videos Creators............................Celebrities Outlandish heteros.................."Mainstreamed" gays Tycoons (the band)..................Day traders In-group patronization..............Pious indignation Direct action......................."civil society" Streaming net video.................Cable access Partying naked......................Wearing `Party Naked' T-shirts "I love everyone and you're next"..."Do I look like I give a damn?" Doing your own thing................Following advice on web sites UNTIL NEXT WE MEET in the year so great there's a Washington highway named after it, pace yourself by toasting the New Year once for each North American time zone (starting with Newfoundland at 7:30 p.m. PST), and ponder these thoughts attributed to Lillian Helman: "If I had to give young writers advice, I'd say don't listen to writers talking about writing."

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