-Today we're talking about writing poems to inanimate objects. -WHAT? -Yeah. Let's talk about that vid.
-Yo you're watching VidTalk on VoiceTube TV, I'm JR. -I'm Ray.
And I'm reluctant to talk about poetry, aren't we supposed to be talking about Kobe Bryant's retirement?
Yes we are, fret not. We are talking about Kobe's retirement but more specifically we're talking about his poem that he wrote to basketball, that inanimate object.
Kobe and poetry, now that sounds totally off, that sounds awkward cause the Kobe I know shoots great hoops and does a lot of trash talk.
-Now that's Kobe. -That is Kobe, but... -Poetry doesn't go with him.
Yes, but he wrote this poem to say goodbye, he wrote this poem to announce that he is retiring after this season.
So this is kind of his way to say goodbye to basketball, to the league, to his fans, he kind of poured his heart into this poem.
-So he's getting sentimental. -Yeah, it shows through this poem.
Well speaking of Kobe Bryant, he's 37 years old now, he's been playing in the NBA since he graduated from high school.
And he's been playing with the LA Lakers, that's 20 seasons in total, that's actually a record you know.
-Cause that's the most seasons played with the same team. -For a single team.
Within his record he's won five NBA championships and has been elected seventeen times on the all-star team.
-Wow that is a hell of a resume. -Yeah he's really got game.
And because of his outstanding performance on the field, he's earned himself a couple of nicknames.
For example, the Black Mamba, Peter Pan, and there's this one: Kobe wan Kenobi.
-May the ball be with you. -From Star Wars.
Speaking of his name though, do you know where his real name comes from?
-You mean Kobe? -Yeah, Kobe. -Where does it come from?
Well actually before he was born, one day his dad was eating in a restaurant, he was having Kobe steak.
-Really? -Kobe steak. And it tasted so delicious, he decided to call his first child Kobe.
-For real? -Yeah, that's right. So for your case, you like to eat stinky tofu right?
-Right, so following that logic, I would name my first child Stinky and my second child Tofu. -Stinky and Tofu.
And I'm sure there are a lot of Kobe fans right here in Taiwan because I think he's visited us for a couple of times?
-Four times in total as far as I recall. -06, 07, 09, and then... -This year.
-Right, 2015. -This summer actually. -Right.
-And so he has phenomenal influence in the basketball community. -How's that though?
Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of amazing feats and accomplishments that he did.
First thing, he once singlehandedly scored 81 points by himself in one game.
That's crazy! 81 points? What's the final score though?
It was 2006 against the Raptors. The final score was 122 vs. 104.
Wow so he scored 81 points out of 122, that is amazing. He really blew the competition away.
He must have been at the top of his game at that time being.
And on top of that, second, he is placed overall in the third place in NBA history as the top scorer.
-In terms of total score? -Yeah, in terms of total scores. He's placed right above Michael Jordan.
That definitely gives him some speaking rights. But he's here for a definite reason, cause he's a really hard worker.
Usually his team they do team practice at the gym around 7 in the morning, but usually he gets up earlier than that.
-He does individual training on his own. -Before 7? -So he gets up around like 4 in the morning. 4 in the morning to do practice.
He's really dedicated, he really has strong work ethics.
And don't just take it from us, a lot of other professional players have said nice things about him,
so here are a few quotes of players paying homage to this excellent player.
Michael Jordan said in his 2012 biography that "Kobe's the only one to have done the work," and that "he deserves the comparison to himself".
Wow that's a great compliment.
Jason Kidd in the 2008 Olympics said "Kobe was great. He practices as if it's game seven."
"He wants to prove that he's the best player in the world every single practice."
And Shaq O'Neal, his old team mate, he said in a 2011 memoir that "Kobe works out every day, he practices every day. Unlike the other stars."
But you know, everybody has his ups and downs in life and Kobe is no exception to that.
Recently he's been losing his touch in his game, for the past few seasons, mostly because of some injuries that he's had.
And one in specific is his Achilles tendon. He's been really having some problems with that, suffering from that.
And the Lakers, speaking of them. Well they haven't been performing well in the past few seasons too.
Yeah painfully to speak, that is true. And Kobe personally, he has an accuracy rate of around 30-ish%.
So that's one out of three shots, which is not that good actually.
But because of his dedication and loyalty to the game, the coach refused to bench him and still puts him out there for every game.
-Because he's kinda like... -The symbol, the spiritual leader. -...of the Lakers team.
But Kobe himself, he couldn't take this pressure anymore, he wanted to take this off his shoulders,
and he said, long beforehand, he has made this decision, and he felt that this is the right time to do it.
This is the right time to let go. To retire and to call it a career basically.
And he expressed this with his kind of melancholic, kind of determined poem.
-So this is where the poem comes in. -Right, this is finally where the poem comes in.
-Alright do you have the poem? -Yeah, so here we wanted to show you a little excerpt of the poem
-so that you can get a feel of the inner world, the inner feelings of... -The Black Mamba! -...of Kobe Bryant. Here's the poem.
Dear Basketball, you gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream and I'll always love you for it.
But I can't love you obsessively for much longer. This season is all I have left to give.
My heart can take the pounding, my mind can handle the grind, but my body knows it's time to say goodbye.
And that's OK. I'm ready to let you go.
I want you to know that now, so that we both can savor every moment we have left together.
The good and the bad. We have given each other all that we have.
-Wow, that is deep. That is really deep. -Do you like poetry now? -No, I've always had bad memories with poetry. So no.
So this about it for Kobe's retirement, and right here we have a video for you that's a news highlight on this particular issue,
and after you check this out, we'll be back with the Weekly Challenge.
After 20 incredible seasons as one of basketball's brightest stars, Kobe Bryant is planning to retire at the end of the season.
Bryant wrote a poem published in the player's tribune announcing his decision to hang up his sneakers and call it a career.
And what a career it's been! Bryant will go down as the NBA's third all-time leading scorer just above Michael Jordan.
During his run, he captured five championships, two final's MVPs, and seventeen all-star game appearances all with the Lakers.
Not to mention his two gold medals.
He's come a long way since being the youngest player in an NBA game, but like anyone else, his youth has faded.
Welcome to the Weekly Challenge part of VidTalk, and today we're looking at this particular sentence.
Bryant wrote a poem published in the player's tribune announcing his decision to hang up his sneakers and call it a career.
Now we want you to make a sentence with "call it a career", and what does that mean JR?
Well call it a career you've probably heard of the phrase "call it a day"? Which means to wrap up the day, to finish the day's work.
So call it a career means to finish your career, make an ending to it.
So call it a career is to end your profession. End you life as a professional.
And call it a day is ending a day's work. So call it a something.
You can make a sentence with either call it a career, or call it a day, call it a night.
And leave it in our comment section right there, we might choose yours for the next episode.
Thank you for liking, commenting, and sharing this video!
And remember to subscribe to VoiceTube TV right up here and come back every Thursday night for a new episode of VidTalk.
And also, subscribe to both of us here: rayduenglish and jrleeradio.
And let's go to our comments left by you guys in our last episode. Last time we talked about bucket lists, kicking the bucket.
Things that you want to do before you die, and we wanted to cover as much ground as possible so we've chosen 10 of your comments.
-I have 5, you have 5. -I have 5. Let's start with yours.
First of all we have YuChen, "Before I kick the bucket, I want to go hang-gliding." Okay cool.
Chia Min, "Before I kick the bucket, I want to travel around the world within 80 days with my lovely family."
Sounds expensive.
And Odette, "Before I kick the bucket, I want to live with my family on an island and be good friends with dolphins."
(dolphin sounds) Can we be friends with you? We're dolphins.
Yu Ting, "Before I kick the bucket, I want to be a person with strong self confidence."
And Tseng Yu, "Before I kick the bucket, I want to be a person who can influence people around the world,
-and then teaching them the specific location of Taiwan." -Tell people we're not Thailand, we're Taiwan.
-What you got there? -Well what I got here is 5 comments, Benson Wang,
"Before I kick the bucket, I want to see JR and Ray with my own eyes."
-Before that though, you can see us every week on VidTalk. -And stop brown-nosing.
Ok next, automatic230, "Before I kick the bucket, I want to become a professional dancer and finish a wonderful performance."
That sounds lovely! Next, her name is I want to be a nutritionist, bless you.
She said, "Before I kick the bucket, I want to be an honored guest on VidTalk."
-That won't help you with your exam though. -But it'll be fun!
Alright, next! Sunny820714, is that your birthday? Happy birthday by the way.
"Before I kick the bucket, I want to become a person who doesn't give a damn about what others think of me, I just want to be truly be myself."
You do you. You do you.
Last but not least, Mong Chi Shi. Sounds like a monkey.
"Before I kick the bucket, I want to use the rest of my life to accompany my family, especially my wife." That is sweet.
And those are our comments for today! Thank you very much that's a wrap for the show.
-And I'm JR, -I'm Ray, -and we'll talk to you next time.