Jalen Brunson, Prince of All Saiyans
On basketball, Dragon Ball, and other people's happiness
Seconds after the New York Knicks won their first NBA championship in 53 years, paid subscriber David turned to me and said “you’ve got to write about this”. I am happy to oblige this request. If you have no interest in professional basketball (your loss!) you can skip the opening essay and go straight to the tunes. If you’d like to suggest a subject for a future newsletter, the comment section is always open!
It is summer, and as so often happens once the days grow long and temperatures rise, my thoughts travel down the Hollywood Video of my memory to rent the subject of Dragon Ball Z. As I wrote two summers ago, the world famous and long running anime series was a fixture of my childhood growing up in New York in the late 90s and early 00s. Though I haven’t watched an episode in years, DBZ continues to pop back up in my life where you’d least expect it, in the pages of a late period Pynchon novel or, relevant to today’s letter, on a professional athlete’s podcast.
A few weeks ago, while the New York Knicks were turning the eastern conference playoffs into a pile of ash on their way to their first NBA Finals since 1999, my friend Henry sent me a clip from the Roommates podcast, hosted by Knick wing Josh Hart’s and his teammate & team captain Jalen Brunson. Their guest was Rick Brunson, Jalen’s father, a former Knick himself and current assistant coach on the team. In the clip Brunson the elder shares an embarrassing story from his son’s childhood. “His favorite cartoon was Dragon Ball Z”, a claim immediately confirmed by Jalen. Rick then goes on to describe young Jalen acting out scenes from the show in the shower. Jalen, typically one of the most unflappable motherfuckers in the league, recoils in horror and desperately tries to clarify while Hart laughs uproariously.
If you aren’t familiar with either professional sports or Shonen anime you might find Brunson’s love for Dragon Ball Z a little confusing. Anime is nerd stuff, sports is jock stuff, never the two shall meet, etc. In reality Dragon Ball Z and athletics are a perfect pair. The principle characters spend countless hours training and preparing mentally for combat. Entire arcs are spent on tournaments where friendly competition and life-and-death stakes frequently intermingle. When they aren’t training or fighting, the characters ruminate on how to improve or steel themselves for the next confrontation. Of course an athlete could relate to this cycle of preparation, action, and analysis. It’s only natural that a zillennial like Brunson would have a poster of Goku and friends hanging next to images of say, Michael Jordan or Allen Iverson.
After watching the clip I couldn’t help but speculate about which scene young Jalen Brunson was playing out. There are many instances of DBZ characters hanging tough in the rain. Depending on how deep in the weeds Brunson was he might have been emulating the climactic scene from The History of Trunks where the titular character goes Super Saiyan for the first time. The first scene that came to my mind however involves Trunk’s father, Prince Vegeta (like the NBA, Dragon Ball is a generational tale). Maybe you’ve seen the image in .gif form. Vegeta, fresh off a nasty defeat, stands on an isolated mountain top, his face frozen in stoic resolve pitched upward into torrential downpour. After internally monologuing through his self-doubts, Vegeta lets out a scream that splits the skies open and promises to rededicate himself to his training.
Vegeta, one of DBZ’s several villains-turned-heroes, is a real piece of work. He’s a vainglorious jerk, a head shorter than much of the cast but with an ego that towers over all of them. He’s gruff, merciless, and more than a little amoral, guided only his pride and the warrior code of his Saiyan people. He arrives on Earth with bad intentions, world domination, lemme get those Dragon Balls, etc. Earth’s hero Goku beats his ass, but the fight is close enough that Vegeta vows to overcome him. Every step of the way, no matter how hard he tries, Vegeta lags behind Goku. And boy does he try hard. Along the way his rough edges soften just enough to become a sympathetic character. The heir to a once mighty empire, Vegeta has spent his entire life in the service of the man that killed his father, biding his time until he’s strong enough to avenge his family and his world-nation. This tragic backstory and his relentless striving make Vegeta extremely appealing to a certain kind of guy. We may all aspire to be Goku but in our inevitable failure we are often much more like Vegeta. Is it that hard to imagine that Brunson, also decked out in blue and white with orange accents, also undersized and tasked with restoring glory to an Empire State and avenging his own father’s failures, might see more than a little of himself in the Prince of All Saiyans?
Vegeta is a tough act to emulate. He is a miserable asshole who only smiles when he’s winning a fight or watching an enemy fail. His jokes are entirely at the expense of others. He holds himself apart from the rest of the cast even after joining the good guys. But gradually, as he’s humbled and humanized, he learns to sacrifice himself for others, to celebrate collective victories. His selfishness is bent slowly into friendship. He learns to be part of the team. This too makes him relatable. There were many years of my life where I treated happiness as a zero-sum game, isolating myself from my peers when I could not take part in their joy. I too have been a jerk to the people that have called themselves my friend. I’ve sabotaged myself out of hubris and too much faith my idiosyncratic moral code. It is not fun to live this way.
Despite all the winning, it doesn’t seem fun to be Jalen Brunson on the court either. Nepo-baby he may be, but Brunson does not play like a silver spooner. Compare him to last decade’s most popular second-generation undersized guard, Steph Curry. Curry’s got at least 3-4 inches on Brunson (about half the length of a Saiyan’s haircut) and is the greatest shooter the league has ever seen. Curry, a Protestant, makes winning look easy. Brunson, Catholic school college champ, makes winning look profoundly difficult. That isn’t to say that Brunson is tough to watch. Hardly. His masterful footwork, precise timing and expert touch are hypnotizing especially when he’s on a heater. But everything about his game evinces work. He doesn’t freestyle his way into points, he crowbars them out of the opposing defense one at a time. He also gets beat up a lot. In the first Finals game against the San Antonio Spurs, the same team that defeated the Knicks in the 99 Finals when his father was a bit player on the team, Brunson injured his leg twice. In Game 3, Spurs center Victor Wembanyama threw Brunson to the ground and didn’t get called for it. Brunson spent the whole series getting smacked, shoved, pulled around, clawed, you name it. At one point in the deciding Game 5 Wembanyama stepped under Brunson while he was in the air, a technical foul that should have forced the 7’5” Frenchman out of Game 6, had the Spurs held on to their early lead.
But of course the Spurs couldn’t hold their lead. Every time Brunson hit the floor he got up more resolved, more poised, and delivered exactly what New York needed. In Dragon Ball Z, each time the Saiyans survive a battle that they lose, they return with increased strength. Typically enough strength to defeat whichever opponent was foolish enough not to finish them off. The Spurs, despite their hot starts, their world-class defense, and their singularly talented center, could never put Brunson and the Knicks away. Each time he returned stronger. Put them down 10 points, 15, 20, 29, it doesn’t matter, they’d find the energy to cut the lead to shreds and win regardless. By Game 5 Brunson had gone nuclear, scoring nearly half of the Knicks points by himself.
Game 5 happened to air on the Saturday night centerpiece of the Puerto Rican Pride festival here in Chicago. Humboldt Park, roughly a full court shot away from my apartment, is the festival’s epicenter. In the week preceding there’s a noticeable uptick in small flags peaking out of the sides of passing cars. As the days pass, the flags expand, growing large enough for wind and velocity to beat steady 16th notes as their cars speed down Chicago’s long straight avenues. The flags come in vibrant tri-color or severe black and white, some bear frogs or roosters, and they’re paired with all manner of other banners; American flags, Mexican flags, Juneteenth flags, Pride flags. Once the weekend hits the cars take on more and more riders, spilling out of windows and leaning off of roofs. The beating of the flags are joined by an indescribable cacophony. Motorcycles, slingshots, cop cars in irate pursuit of all of the above, an ever changing collage of engine noise, sirens, honking in solidarity, screams of the same, every variety of Puerto Rican pop music that gringos like me are too dumb to identify, fireworks and “fireworks”… all drowning out the already chaotic sonic landscape of a televised NBA Finals game, which my neighbors and I watched in our backyard garage. Three announcers trade lines, are interrupted by ads, Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody”, ABC’s boisterous NBA theme in mixed meter, shoes squeaking, whistles blown on fouls and yells from fouls never called, crowds responding in mass near-unison aided by game ops overeager to get any reaction at all from the gaping audience. This is to say nothing of our own conversation. Games of these stakes in the company of others have a way of turning me into a gibbering idiot. We talked stats, lore, shared our various opinions on players from both teams, remembered some guys. As the clock wore down my speech regressed. I muttered cliches, shouted single syllables. I’ve never had a more hectic experience watching a must-win Finals game. And there in the center of the hurricane was Jalen Brunson.
At no point in Game 5 did I believe the Spurs would win. Their early lead felt like a formality, an invitation for the Knicks to do what they always do. True to form, they took their early hits, brushed the blood off their lip with a smirk and bit by bit wore the Spurs down. The Knicks had so obviously solved the Spurs intellectually and broken them spiritually that most of the drama came from their own human error, missed free throws, etc. I’ve had strong feelings that one team would beat the other in high stress games. I’ve wanted teams to win under these kinds of circumstances. But I’ve never had faith that a team would win the way I did with these Knicks. Their suffering only provided the importance of that faith, or in Vegeta’s terms, they allowed the opponent to appear stronger in order to prove their own worth.
When the final buzzer sounded all my deranged muttering morphed into elated screams. Tears were shed, hugs distributed, every variation of “wow” uttered. Then came the dancing. We put on Ja Rule, Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove”, Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” and The Rapture’s “House of Jealous Lovers”. Wordless or singing along, in various states of jubilation and stupor, we swayed and strutted across the backyard. I have rarely felt more sure that I was behaving how joyous people have behaved forever and everywhere. Rain started to fall. The party outside ebbed and flowed at its own tidal rhythm unrelated and at ease with the fluctuations in the weather. Our own party dwindled, drifting off to sleep or to watch the festivities outside. When I was nearly the last band-wagoner left (I am a Bulls fan) I stepped out of the garage and into the rain. Warm in the embrace of other people’s joy I closed my eyes and tilted my face upward. I let the moment wash over me.
# # # # # The Promo Zone # # # # #
I’m writing this section of the newsletter from The Greatest City In The World hours before rehearsing with Bellows for our upcoming tour in support of our new double album “Que Bello!”. We have two full days of jamming scheduled in advance of our set opening for The Hotelier at the god damn Bowery Ballroom. After that we have our own release show lined up in Manhattan, followed by a run across New England, the shallow South, and the Midwest. The core four members of the band, Oliver Kalb (vocals/guitar), Jack Greenleaf (bass/backing vocals), Frank Meadows (keys/backing vocals) and myself (drums/can’t even drive) will be joined by Emily Reo (keys/backing vocals) and Julian Fader (guitar/percussion). I am eager to see what we’re able to accomplish with this supersized lineup, and who knows what having two Tour Diarists in the car will do for us! Scan the poster below for a full list of our upcoming tour dates.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Listen to this year’s diary on Apple Music.
“The Szuite” by Hermann Szobel (Szobel, 1976)
I’d never heard Hermann Szobel until Ferrn Ryan pointed me toward a list of underrated progressive rock albums. There will be more coming from that list. Few selections will have a more compelling backstory than Szobel, which was composed and recorded by its namesake at age 18. That alone would qualify it as an outrageous novelty. I mean, lord, this stuff is INVOLVED. But being a prodigy wasn’t enough, Szobel then proceeded to vanish off the face of the Earth. You can’t tell a guy on his second read of Gravity’s Rainbow that prog rock has its own mysterious Pynchon figure and expect him to be rational about it.
“Heart of a Phoenix” by Aaron Shaw (And So It Is, 2026)
A multi-act jazz suite that stitches together multiple versions of Coltranism. A harp lead opening leads into a rolling 6/8 vamp which in turn gives way to a choir of woodwinds. Experienced jazz heads will probably recognize all of the different reference points Shaw and company are working from, but the exact order and timing of those different elements remains surprising and fresh.
“Miragem” by Bacamatre (Depois do fim, 1983)
Here’s another inclusion from that list of underrated prog acts, this time hailing from Brazil. I like that they’ve got a real flute instead of just a mellotron. Even though the production is a little rough, you can tell from the synths that this is from a later era than most prog rock that sounds like this. Much respect for keeping all these ideas to a tight five minutes.
“Burnt Mauve” by Lice (Miami Lice: Season Four, 2026)
~*My Fiancée*~ suggested this record as the soundtrack to a drive to and from Costco a few months back. The whole record is a hoot, but I like how this song forces them to trade bars of four in a way that highlights the difference in their styles. Aesop tries to fit as many words as possible, Sandman tries to fill as much space with as few words as possible. “To make sure I don’t lose count I don’t count stuff” made me laugh real loud.
“Seething and Scattered” by Neurosis (An Undying Love For A Burning World, 2026)
I’ve got a draft cooking on a longer letter about Neurosis’s sudden reemergence with a new album and a new guitarist/singer, none other than Sumac’s Aaron Turner, but for now all I’ll say is that no track on Undying Love made me smile as wide as fast as this one. Turner plays a support role here. Instead Von Till shares the mic with his fellow OGs, keyboardist Noah Landis and bassist Dave Edwardson. I don’t think this trio has sung together on a Neurosis song since “Falling Through” in 2001 (correct me if I’m wrong). I don’t know whether it was the subtraction of Scott Kelly or the addition of Aaron Turner, but Neurosis sound like they rediscovered in themselves the fire that once drove them to be one of the most influential heavy bands of the 1990s.
\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /
Fragile by Yes (1971) - Progressive Rock
One of my favorite prog records ever since I snuck it out of a friend’s dad’s CD collection early one morning after a sleepover and listened on headphones before the rest of the house woke up. Brilliant structure here. A handful of long tracks broken up by short interludes that highlight the talents and sensibilities of each individual band member. Not only do the interludes help the pacing, they also teach you what to listen for in the longer tracks. Almost like a Wu-Tang record. The newest addition to the crew in this case is keyboardist Rick Wakeman, whose classical chops push the band into a whole new level of shredding. “Roundabout” and “Heart of the Sunrise” are the obvious standouts, but don’t sleep on “South Side of the Sky”, which features some of the band’s hardest riffs and a gorgeous piano-led bridge. Couldn’t tell you what any of the tunes are about, Jon Anderson is more of a syllabic singer than a communicator, but boy does it all sound good. “We Have Heaven” is Animal Collective’s father.
Souls At Zero by Neurosis (1992) - Metal
It’s almost Neurosis! I kid, but this record does sound more like a band striving at a style than a band embodying one. I imagine that this reaching quality is what endears this early record from Neurosis to some fans, and certainly it must have been a shock to the system when it first hit the scene. Still, many of the fruits in the band’s grasp are either low-hanging or underripe (arborists don’t @ me). For example, they indulge in a lot of hard cuts from distortion to acoustic guitars that they’d never allow themselves in their late period strictness. Doesn’t help that a lot of the riffs and leads are a little pedestrian, suffering from an uncharacteristically bland and screechy guitar tone. I say all this and then a song like “The Web” comes on and boom, there’s the real deal Neurosis, fully formed. Even some of the choices that they’d later avoid, like adding live violins and horns, are intriguing paths not taken and charming in their naive execution. I bet this version of the band was a revelation live. The primal joys of dropping bomb samples over doom riffs and screaming your head off.
A Sun That Never Sets by Neurosis (2001) - Post-Metal
The lesser of the two Neurosis albums with “Sun” in the title, and the beginning of the band’s slower, sparser middle era. This era is also marked by Steve Von Till’s emergence as the band’s more skilled singer & songwriter, better suited for the band’s mature style than Scott Kelly, though Kelly’s voice hadn’t fallen off a cliff the way it would on the next record. This is also the first album where Neurosis operate like a post rock band with long stretches of softness gradually working their toward thunderous climaxes. Given their chops playing slow and heavy and their increasing deftness at slow and soft this pivot is a winning move, but like a lot of post rock it gets dreary as it approaches the hour mark. Still there are some bangers, the title track, the softer passages of “Crawl Back In” the crescendo of “Falling Through” and especially the startling closing moments of “Stones From The Sky” when the record’s reality falls apart at the seams. Big fan of all the bell samples, genuinely unnerving stuff. Not their best but still good!
Resurrection Through Carnage by Bloodbath (2002) - Death Metal
Bloodbath’s debut full length record is a tribute to old school death metal that is now itself an old school death metal album. Funny how time works! If this dropped today fans would probably think it was made by a hardcore band, but nope, this metal by metalheads for metalheads. It’d be easy to reduce this to “knowingly dumb music made by smart musicians”, and that’s true to an extent. This is simple and murderously blunt stuff, but its simplicity belies all sorts of sneaky clever tricks just under the surface (sophisticated panning, phasers on drum fills, etc). Clearly these guys LOVE death metal and write with an ear for what they would want to hear as fans. Moreover they clearly know how to write catchy hooks, no small feat when you can’t use vocal melodies! I often describe this kind of Swedish death metal as being deep fried or BBQ’d, usually in reference to the guitar tone. That certainly applies here, but Resurrection is also the exact kind of metal album I’d play at a BBQ, providing that the overwhelming majority of people lining up to the grill were wearing four-sided long sleeves. A certified great time.
Funeral by Arcade Fire (2004) - Indie Rock
Did this album directly contribute to the horrid millennial whoop and birth its insufferable suspenders-wearing practitioners? Is Win Butler a creep and a pompous asshole? Is [REDACTED] *also* a [REDACTED]?? Even with these questions answered in the affirmative, I regret to inform you that this record still slaps. Quintessential children of the 70s, Arcade Fire strapped the dad rock canon of Springsteen, Neil Young et al around the engines of disco and rode it into (temporary) indie legend. My boomer parents liked them, my Gen X neighbors liked them, and my millennial peers & I LOVED them. I can’t imagine anyone younger would give them the time of day, but if they did they’d find a textbook’s worth of good arrangement practices. Yes, the tunes are overwrought in a teen-friendly way, but with a debut’s budget they are rendered with far more energy and charm than on later better funded releases. Butler’s voice, straining out of his range and crunchy with distortion is the best it’d ever sound. Is their reliance on the second half beat switch predictable? Yes, and it still works every time. It doesn’t mean as much to me now, but it’s still a great indie rock record.