The Official 2007 Wounded Mosquito NBA Preview!

The regular season is less than a month away, and barring any unforeseen trades or mysterious alien abductions, NBA rosters are more or less in place for the 2007-08 season. What’s going to happen? Read on, good brother:

Atlanta Hawks

I’m not sure what’s up with the Hawks, but I know there’s been a big fuss about Falcon quarterback Michael Vick running a dogfighting ring. The days of Dominique and Spud have never looked fonder.

Prediction: Vick dominated headlines, Hawk defenders dominate baselines…as in, “getting tossed onto them by rival power forwards”.

Boston Celtics

My inside sources tell me the boys in Bean Town are looking to make a big trade, something that will shake up the Eastern Conference like nobody’s business. As soon as I hear anything concrete, I’ll let you know.

Prediction: 40-42, 9th place in a suddenly resurgent conference.

Charlotte Bobcats

Well, I know that the Charlotte Bobcats have lots of players on their team. There's a solid chance they'll play lots of games, too. If they win lots of those games, they'll probably go to the playoffs. I feel very confident of that.

Prediction: Jordan suits up one last time, then trades himself to the Yakima Sun Kings in disgust.


Chicago Bulls

I hear Ben Wallace has been given permission to wear his headband in games this season. Yep, that’ll put the Bulls over the top.

Prediction: 50-32, with a cozy bump out of the second round.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Pro: LeBron James just took your team to the Finals. Con: They got swept, and four months later he showed up at an ALDS playoff game wearing a Yankees cap. Yes, we are all witnesses, but to what exactly?

Prediction: LeBron James replaces Art Modell as Cleveland Public Enemy #1 inside of three years.

Dallas Mavericks

On the plus side, owner Mark Cuban has to feel vindicated that an NBA official finally got busted for cheating. On the down side, his 67-win squad really did blow a first-round match up to his former coach.

Prediction: 45-37. The curtain has been drawn aside, Dirk.

Denver Nuggets

Bad news, kids: Allen Iverson now claims that he’s matured since his infamous rant about practice. The AI we’ve come to know and love is now officially dead. Will this spell success for the Nuggets? Nope. They’ve still got Carmelo.

Prediction: 47-35, and still wearing those dippy baby blue uni’s.

Detroit Pistons

Was Chris Webber seriously thinking about ditching the Pistons to go play in Greece? Is he crazy? Well…don’t answer that.

Prediction: A mid-season epiphany at Taco Bell tames the beast that is Sheed, and his tech’s cease for three weeks before leaving to spend retirement weaving hammocks in the South Pacific.

Golden State Warriors

The Warriors were responsible for my fondest memory of the 06-07 season. At the press conference after their season-ending loss to the Jazz, in the wake of a season that saw an end to a fifteen-year playoff drought and a nation-inspiring upset of the #1 seeded Dallas Mavericks in the first round, coach Don Nelson was asked by a keen ESPN sportswriter what Golden State needed to do to get “over the hump”.

His response? “What hump?”

If someone did the same thing to Bobby Knight he would have been shot on the spot.

Prediction: 39-43, and another playoff drought begins.

Houston Rockets

Somehow these guys got Steve Francis back, the same guy they traded for Tracy McGrady a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, in the interim Francis has been declared legally insane. Bad news for Yao. Bad news for Houston.

Prediction: 50-32, and still well ahead of the Jazz in the ESPN Power Rankings.

Indiana Pacers

Jermaine O’Neal still seems pretty bent on getting out of town. Never a good sign when your star player wants a change of address. Hmmm…I wonder if there’s an Indiana icon who could help out with this problem?

Prediction: Shooter runs the picket fence at ‘em, and Indiana makes the second round.

Los Angeles Clippers

This is what you get for putting your faith in someone. Last year I predict these guys win the title, and they don’t even bother making the playoffs. I know it was you, Sam…you broke my heart.

Prediction: Chris Kaman re-grows his hair, gets his first all-star nod, and rest of team dies in tragic plane crash over North Dakota.

Los Angeles Lakers

A few years back, Kobe Bryant (supposedly, cough, cough) got Shaq shipped out of town so he could have the team to himself. Then last summer Kobe asked to get traded himself. Some say Kobe doesn’t know what he wants. I say Kobe just wants to destroy the Lakers. That’s why Kobe Bryant is my favorite player in the NBA.

Prediction: You see anything different happening with these guys? Neither do I.

Memphis Grizzlies

It’s a good thing the proud city of Memphis, Tennessee has a long and rich tradition of musical excellence. Because their basketball team sucks.

Prediction: A Blue Christmas. And a Blue New Years. And a Blue Valentine's Day…

Miami Heat

One year you with the title, the next year you’re swept out of the first round. That’s the way it goes in the NBA sometimes. Superman may have a solid season or two left in the tank, but the real question is whether Riles has enough hair gel for 82.

Prediction: Within three years, Dwyane Wade takes his place with Kobe, Kirilenko and Marion on the Grumpy Train.

Milwaukee Bucks

Last summer the Bucks drafted this dude from China who immediately demanded a trade because of a lack of endorsement opportunities in the frigid Midwest. Thousands of cheeseheads frowned at their newspapers and muttered, “wait a minute…can this guy even play?”

Prediction: Yi gets his a** mailed to him on 82 separate occasions, then takes up residence in Siberia next season, where he enjoys endorsement contracts with “Sheepdogs by Boris” and “Kuddly Komrades” clothing for rugged toddlers.

Minnesota Timberwolves

Do these guys still plan on playing this year? I’m sorry, I was under the impression that the Garnett trade was kind of a “going out of business” thing.

Prediction: I hear hockey is pretty popular up north…

New Jersey Nets

See, kids, lots of people believe in this thing called “Karma”. They talk all about it on this TV show called “My Name is Earl”. Now, Jason Kidd has it, and so does Richard Jefferson. The problem is this fellow named Vince Carter. See, he has it, but his kind is not “good” Karma, it’s the “I openly screwed the nation of Canada and tanked games to get traded, and now I am merely biding time until I roast in the open flames of Hell” kind.

Prediction: One more all-star appearance for Carter, one more meaningless first or second round playoff exit for the Nets.

New Orleans Hornets

Last season they made a bunch of trades and got a bunch of injuries in return. This summer they traded those injuries for some magic beans.

Prediction: Chris Paul jerseys still outsell Deron Williams jerseys, even while Paul watches Williams in the playoffs from his couch.

New York Knicks

(uncontrollable laughter)

Prediction: Why bother?

Oklahoma Supersonics

Soundbite from year-old team press conference: “Oh yeah, we totally want to stay here in Seattle. We are all over the grunge scene, yo. Huh? My partners are all from Oklahoma City? The same place that has been hosting Hornets games and desperately wants its own NBA team? Wow, there’s a coincidence for you. Well, don’t worry, we love it here in Spokane. We’d never think of moving.”

Prediction: Kevin Durant pulls Rookie of the Year, right as the U-Haul is pulling out of town.

Orlando Magic

I really hate Florida teams. I wish we could just give Florida back to the Spaniards and call it even.

Prediction: I don’t know, man. It’s getting late, and I need to work on some other stuff. Dwight Howard will probably get a rebounding title or something.


Philadelphia 76ers

It’s not looking so good, Philly-Fans. If the Sixers can’t get over the hump this year, I think Charles Barkley should probably demand a trade.

Prediction: Andre Miller remains in Purgatory for passing up the chance to sign with the Jazz four years ago.


Phoenix Suns

Tell me, Suns fan: does it help or hurt to find out that the ref handling your second-round loss to the Spurs was on the take? In other news, perennially underrated (yet strangely overpaid) forward Shawn Marion has demanded a trade. Because obviously, when you look back on a career, you’d much rather see scoring titles and all-star appearances than titles.

Prediction: Tim Donaghy and Shawn Marion mysteriously disappear by the beginning of December. See, Arizona has a looooot of open space.

Portland Trail Blazers

Greg Oden’s injury has everyone resurrecting the ghost of Sam Bowie, which is really annoying for Bowie, because he’s not dead. Meanwhile, one guy in Utah points out that Mr. “Come Fly With Me” missed almost all of his second season with a broken foot, but no one seems to notice.

Prediction: Oden undoes months of rehab when he starts a brawl at a Portland gas station when the attendant refuses to let him “pump his own”.


Regis Philbin

The days of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" appear to be long gone, though "Regis and Kelli" seems to be holding its own. My advice is to mine the relationship with Letterman and see if a late-night spot might open up in the schedule.

Prediction: Nothing but gold for this Pony Boy.

Sacramento Kings

The answer is yes, Sac-Town fan: Ron Artest still plays for your team.

Prediction: Ron-Ron has an even bigger epiphany than Sheed, then engineers a trade to the Utah Jazz, where he fills a tremendous hole at shooting guard, swears allegiance to Jerry Sloan, and discovers a deep passion for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

San Antonio Spurs

Well guys, it’s your off-year, so you may as well settle back and enjoy another nine months as the official “NBA team with the best-looking fan/player-wife person”.

Prediction: Tim Duncan will continue to do his thing, getting honors and praise from basketball purists while everyone else calls him boring. Tony Parker will lose a step and everyone will blame it on his marriage. Greg Popovitch will continue to do his Jerry Sloan impression without getting all of the “my coach hates me” backlash. Then they’ll lose in the conference finals.

The A-Team

It was a tough season last year, with a series of close-fought contests the boys only managed to pull out at the last second. Thanks to Hannibal's leadership and Murdock's wacky know-how, liabilities like Face's philandering and B. A. Baracus's hot temper were balanced out. Who's to say how long their luck will hold, though.

Prediction: Syndication

Toronto Raptors

I think it’s really cool that these guys are coming around after getting the shaft from so many “superstar” players (see New Jersey Nets), but I still just can’t get behind a team named after a dinosaur that was kind of cool for fifteen minutes back in 1993.

Prediction: Well...they are in the Eastern Conference...

Utah Jazz

I used to think that Andrei Kirilenko had the coolest hair in the league. Then I looked around and discovered the truth.

Prediction: Andrei mellows out, Deron matures, and Jerry Sloan makes at least 75 farm-related basketball metaphors by December 1st.

Washington Bullets

That Agent Zero guy is pretty cool. He yells “Hibachi” or something whenever he makes a shot. Then he got hurt before the playoffs started and his team got spanked in the first round. I’ll bet they rebound, though. David Stern wants all of the cool nickname guys in the playoffs this year.

Prediction: Remember when Manute Bol used to play for the Bullets? That was way cool. I think he bit the rim one time.

Playoff Forecast:

After an early-season screening of the 80’s film classic “Major League”, the Supersonics are inspired to put together a winning season in a last-ditch effort to keep the team from leaving town. After winning 61 games and making it all the way to the NBA Finals, logistical problems arise when the facilities are moved to Oklahoma, and the resulting confusion allows the Toronto Raptors to seize the first official Canadian NBA title. On the way out of the arena, a champagne-soaked David Stern is heard to growl, “Canuck’s my candy-white (expletive), get me Tim Donaghy!”

A Helpful Guide to Maximizing Your Gym Experience

Fitness in today’s modern world is a complicated venture. Before you sign up for that expensive gym membership, you should be properly prepared to maximize your experience. Entering the fitness environment can be scary at first, as you try to acclimatize to a world of strange and curious health behaviors. But by following a few simple rules, your gym experience won’t just be a financial drain. It can be a mental, physical, and spiritual drain as well.

1. Choose a gym that suits your needs

For the last 18 months, I have attended XCel Spa and Fitness in Bountiful. XCel is a premier fitness center in the Davis County area, unlike Excel Spa and Fitness, which is a prime gathering place for accountants.

XCel serves three primary purposes for my fitness needs: One, “XCel” is a clever way of saying “excel”, which suggests that by attending I will be achieving wonderful things. Two, “XCel” is spelled in a hip way, which makes me feel like a cool person for going there. Third, the gym is less than a block from my house, which means that after difficult workouts I can still drag myself home on my hands and knees.

2. Know your turf

Going to the gym is like going to junior high: you don’t want to get caught standing around looking like you don’t know what you’re doing. So get familiar with the lay of the land.

Free weight area: This area is usually stocked with dumbbells and other “free weights”. The term "free weights" doesn't have a monetary connotation. It means, “weights I could possibly drop and crush myself with”. You don’t see a lot of women in this area, at least any that will be women for long.

Machine area: Weight lifting in this area is much safer, as the weights themselves are usually lashed together with cords and belts to make sure that dumb rookies don’t kill themselves when they try to lift more than they should.

Cardio area: This is a vast aerobic wonderland, stocked with cycles, treadmills, televisions, and other machines designed to help your heart explode. Here you will see die-hard gym rats who run miles at a time on the treadmills, or you can see lazy people who sit on the reclining stationary bikes and pedal while watching Emeril. Sometimes these areas are even stocked with magazines, which allow you to show your peers that not only are you fitness-minded, but you really get into Newsweek, too.

Area where guys usually don't go area: Most fitness facilities will have this big room with mirrors and a hardwood floor set up next to the main weight floor. It looks like a ballet room, if modern ballet were to use a lot of industrial dance music. This is where gyms hold their aerobic classes. It’s also the room most of the guys in the free weight section stare at between their reps.

3. Vary your program

In order to avoid a workout rut, you have to be careful to shake up your routine every once in a while. Working an already-strong upper body may make you feel poofy, but if you don’t work out the bits that need work, you’re going to look like an idiot. The gym has machines designed to work out every area of your body, so try a varied program like the following:

Week 1:

1. 3 sets of 10 bench press
2. 3 sets of 10 power squat
3. 3 sets of 10 arm curl
4. Throw up

Week 2:

1. 3 sets of 10 bench press
2. 3 sets of 10 power squat
3. Throw up
4. 2 sets of 10 arm curl

Week 3:

1. 3 sets of 10 bench press
2. Throw up
3. Go home

Week 4:

1. Quit.

4. Watch out for squeaky machines

You never would have signed up for the gym if you didn’t care about your image. So don’t ruin it by being that one jerk that keeps using the machine that squeaks loudly whenever he does a rep. Just blend in, lemming-boy.

5. Time your visits

Extreme fitness nuts will show up early in the morning to get their workouts in before going to real jobs. Lonely people will work out at night because they don’t have social lives. Unemployed people work out during the day because they can’t get up before 10. Strange people pretty much stay at the gym around the clock, because the sun interferes with the chemicals they inject in their bodies before conducting pagan rites in the sauna areas. Plan your workout times accordingly.

6. Be courteous to the staff

There’s no need to feel lonely at the gym. Good facilities are well-staffed with excited trainers and anxious towel people ready to serve your every need. Just be sure to be polite when you tell the rookie female trainer that you would rather be crushed beneath a 400lb. barbell than let her spot your bench press.

7. Don’t get discouraged

If you’ve been out of the loop for a while, working out shoulder to shoulder with aspiring bodybuilders might be a bit discouraging. Don’t give in to those feelings. There is more to life than a 500lb. bench press. Besides, 75% of gym attendees start their workouts with a nice big shot of anabolic steroids in their behinds, and you don’t really want your biceps to be bigger than your head, do you?

8. Take in the sights

Once you get past the discouragement stage, going to the gym can become a 24/7 entertainment center. Check out the vain dude staring at himself in the mirror, the fellow screaming in the corner, or the girl who spent $200 on her outfit and $2000 on plastic surgery before coming to stand around and shoot the shiz with her friends over by the core machines. Don’t try to say hello, though; those iPod headphones are gym-speak for “get lost, skinny white boy”.

9. Take advantage of the extra facilities


Don’t get in a cardio rut. Or a weight lifting rut. You’re paying through the nose for this, so you may as well get your money’s worth. Besides free weights and machines, quality fitness centers will offer a broad range of aerobic classes and even luxury spots like saunas and tanning salons to cater to your every need. After sweating out those extra calories next to your new friend Ivan, you can go work out with big plastic balls that people leave lying around sometimes.



10. Practice locker room etiquette

Junior high gym class might have helped you to get comfortable dressing and showering with your peers, but it did nothing to prepare you for the day when you’d walk into a public locker room and find lots of naked old dudes wandering around looking for their shorts. Best just be on your way, sport.

11. Advertise your fitness

Once you have paid the price for your fitness, you shouldn’t be shy about proclaiming your buffness to the world at large. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, baby. You earned it.

The Retro Review: The Great Divorce

If Brigham Young University ever got into the habit of handing out honorary General Authority calls for influential non-Mormon Christians, C. S. Lewis would get the first. Outside of Mormon Doctrine, Lewis’ body of work gets referenced in Sunday School classes* more often than any other work outside of the five standard works. I’m guessing there are probably more than a few of the faithful that are still under the impression that Lewis WAS a general authority (along with Steve Martin and Elvis).

But up until recently, the only C. S. Lewis novel I’d ever picked up was Screwtape Letters, the reverse-psychology classic based around a series of letters exchanged between a teacher devil (Screwtape) and a pupil devil (Wormwood). I loved the book, if only for the following passage, written in a cautionary hand by Screwtape:

“Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

It may have been on the strength of that passage that I decided to pick up a copy of The Great Divorce at a small used bookstore in the Haight-Ashbury District in San Francisco five years ago (please don’t let the irony of that statement escape you). Of course, I never actually got around to reading the book until this month, because apparently it was more important for me to finish reading #743 of Kurt Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan.

The Great Divorce has a simple enough premise: it’s the firsthand account of a bus ride between Hell and Heaven, and all the accompanying analysis of what the afterlife will really be made of. Throughout the trip the narrator encounters a series of fellow dead folks as they confront their pasts and their futures, each trying to decide whether to let go of their individual frailties in order to progress. Many of them encounter people from their own pasts, who have died previously, and have now come to encourage them to let go of their vices and embrace true happiness. Painfully, many don’t.

As is usually the case with Lewis, he uses powerful imagery and metaphors to communicate his spiritual insights. Most effective is the insecure husband who meets up with his now-exalted wife. In life he was an emotionally domineering jerk, but in the afterlife, he is little more than a rapidly shrinking dwarf clinging to a chain that operates his own surrogate person—a proxy “Tragedian”—to symbolize his own deteriorating esteem and pettiness.

Lewis’ 128-page bus ride doesn’t seem to have as many “iconic” passages as Screwtape Letters, though it does pack a punch when it needs to, such as in this late bit of counsel given the narrator:

“Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it; or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.”

The Great Divorce is also a lot easier to get through than Screwtape Letters, as I imagine it was easier for the author to write. Reading Screwtape Letters required constant focus, reminding myself to apply the opposite of the counsel on the page. Supposedly this effort to “get into character” was a painful struggle for Lewis. On the other hand, reading The Great Divorce was more like getting the straight dope. I could, in fact, read it on a bus.

In the end, The Great Divorce is another insightful look at human nature and the way our spiritual nature can be taught to emerge in spite of it. One can only speculate as to whether Lewis has embraced the restoration of the Gospel on his own bus ride, but thanks to the works he’s left behind, he’ll long be quoted as if he has.

---

*And Institute classes, as he was only a few hours after I finished the first draft of this review.

“Starting Five”: Soul Men

Picking a “starting five” of all-time best movie endings was tricky; picking a starting five for male soul/R&B vocalists was nearly impossible. In order to pull it off, I had to lay down a few ground rules.

1. Only solo artists allowed—no groups or duo’s. Thus The Temptations, The Four Tops, and Sam & Dave get disqualified.

2. No white dudes. If I tried to add in the blue-eyed soul factor, I’d never get a list together. Thus Steve Winwood, Joe Cocker and Mitch Ryder will have to wait for their own list.

3. No chicks. Same problem. Maybe I’ll write up a list of soul women someday. But even if I did, the games would just be Janis Joplin feeding the ball down low to Aretha Franklin in the post, so why bother?

4. No serious funk crossovers. Funk is not soul. I’m not sharp enough to explain the difference; it’s just there. Thus, the Godfather of Soul himself is omitted from this list, along with Sly Stone, Isaac Hayes, and George Clinton. Again, no hard feelings, it’s just a matter of making another list.

5. No Stevie Wonder. Now, this omission is not out of spite because of the pure jealousy I feel every time I hear “My Cherie Amour” and think that Stevie was all of about 18 years old when he wrote it. No, this omission is a complement, because I seriously think you can’t stick Stevie Wonder in any category but his very own. I don’t even think of Stevie as a black artist. He’s bigger than race.

OK, now that I’ve shot down at least three of the four complaints I’m likely to hear about the following list, here we go:

Point Guard: Sam Cooke
Evidence: “Cupid”, “Chain Gang”, “A Change is Gonna Come”

Of all the great soul artists out there, male or female, my vote for greatest voice of all time goes to one of the original soul pioneers: Sam Cooke. His voice is painfully beautiful, and he recorded what may be the greatest soul record of all time: "A Change is Gonna Come". The only irony is it took a little-known late 80’s sci-fi flick called “Innerspace” to introduce me to his music (and to give me a decade-long crush on Meg Ryan). When crunch time rolls around, I want Sam Cooke handling the ball.

Shooting Guard: Al Green
Evidence: “Let’s Stay Together”, “Love and Happiness”, “Simply Beautiful”

Many people feel that Al Green pretty much carried the soul torch through the 70’s before it got snuffed out in the 80’s (along with just about every other cool act from the 70’s). I’m one of them. Not only did Green carve out a completely unique niche for himself in the wake of the decade and a half of brilliant soul men that preceded him, he also managed to record one of the single coolest Beatle covers this side of Joe Cocker (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”). I feel more than comfortable with letting Al shoot the three ball.

Small Forward: Smokey Robinson
Evidence: “Tracks of My Tears”, “I Second that Emotion”, “Get Ready” (writer)

I may be fudging my rules here a little bit, since Smokey usually performed with The Miracles in tow—and to be honest, a lot of Al Green’s music is pretty funky—but on the sheer power of the songs he sang, the songs he wrote, and the role he played (pivotal builder of the Motown legacy with Berry Gordy), I have to have Smokey coming across from the weak side for the momentum-changing block.

Power Forward: Marvin Gaye
Evidence: “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”, “Let’s Get it On”, “Your Precious Love”

“Let’s Get it On” is awesome. His duets with Tami Terrell were heartbreakingly magnificent. But even if it were the only song he ever put out, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” alone would guarantee Marvin Gaye a spot on this list. The track has been described as “musical voodoo”, and I’m inclined to agree. I just hope that enough of my generation didn’t have this song ruined by that California Raisins commercial when we were kids. Because Marvin is a classic.

Center: Otis Redding
Evidence: “Try a Little Tenderness”, “(Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay”, “Love Man”

At the Monterey Pop Festival back in the summer of 1967, The Who and Jimi Hendrix became legends by destroying their instruments on stage. Otis Redding became a legend by being Otis. When you hear his live cut of “Try a Little Tenderness”, just after he stomps back onstage to reprise the final chorus, you feel a smile come on that easily spans four decades. No one will take it to the hole against this guy.

Sixth Man: Ray Charles
Evidence: “What’d I Say”, “You Don’t Know Me”, “America the Beautiful”

This is the only member of the list that I have actually seen in concert, seven years ago with the Utah Symphony. I’d loved the man’s music ever since his cameo in “The Blues Brothers” (the same film, incidentally, which introduced me to Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Cab Calloway, and John Lee Hooker, among others…). His cover of “America the Beautiful”, used in the second-best scene in “The Sandlot” (#1 is when Squints scams Wendy Peffercorn), will never be topped. Why is he only the sixth man? Come on, when was the last time you saw a blind dude playing basketball?

Bench: Bill Withers, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, Lou Rawls, Bobby Bland

Book Review: Can I Keep My Jersey?

Last weekend I finished reading “Can I Keep My Jersey”, by NBA journeyman Paul Shirley. For the last four or five years, Shirley has been bouncing around the NBA, ABA, CBA, the European Leagues, and possibly the Tokyo Underworld trying to make a career out of playing professional basketball. During a stop in Phoenix, a member of the Suns staff discovered he could write (quite well, actually), and several blog entries and ESPN.com columns later, Shirley produced the aforementioned book.

“Can I Keep My Jersey” chronicles the first four years of Paul’s professional adventures. The dust jacket blurb tells us that reading the contents would be like finding out what it would be like if one of our best friends were in the NBA.

I disagree. Reading “Can I Keep My Jersey” was more like reading a journal I would have written had I been in the NBA. If I were 6’10” and still had hair, anyway. Reading Shirley’s voice is like reading a kindred spirit at worst, and the little voice in my head at…well, I guess that’s kind of bad, too.

The best thing about this book is that you really don’t have to be a pro basketball fan to understand or enjoy it. In fact, one of the constant themes throughout the text is Shirley’s inability to really immerse himself in an environment he finds so bizarre and often repulsive. Materialistic, uneducated teammates are frequently highlighted (though not always named—probably a good idea considering the guy hasn’t retired yet). False management sincerity is deconstructed. (“…while paying me the absolute lowest possible salary allowed by the NBA would be frivolous, paying Shawn Marion enough that he can sit around on the team’s chartered 737 wearing earrings that cost $25,000 each is a sound financial decision.”) In that way, this book is the perfect antidote for the disgruntled fan that loves the pure game but just doesn’t get the culture.

Not only that, but the book is funny. Very funny. The self-depreciating humor and sarcasm is pretty constant, but the true highlights are the rare views into the strange alternate realities professional athletes often reside in, especially in the foreign leagues. Case in point: the outlandish Christmas party Shirley attends with his teammates in Russia that for some reason features male strippers.

I was actually surprised at how much I related to in the book (and what I didn’t relate to, like Shirley’s elaborate description of getting a catheder). For one, he roomed with Alex Jensen in Yakima, Washington. Alex and I graduated from high school together in 1994. Not that he knew me or anything. For one thing, he was a foot taller than me and probably never saw me. For another, I pretty much hated all of his friends.

For another, he also knew Marc Ivaroni. I never knew Marc Ivaroni, but I always enjoyed watching him start Jazz games in the late 80’s, get two fouls in the first five minutes, then watch Thurl Bailey play the rest of the game.

Strangest of all, however, was reading Shirley’s description of playing in Kazan, Russia, which would have been a vivid description by itself—he compares it to the Planet Hoth on “Empire Strikes Back”—without reading it only days after Andrei Kirilenko claimed to want to forfeit his $63 million dollar contract to go play there. Either Andrei is truly insane or Jerry Sloan is the Anti-Christ. Possibly both.

The sad thing is that guys like Shirley would kill for the opportunities many players toss aside so leisurely. In spite of his cynicism and black sense of humor, that is what continues to make Shirley an endearing voice. You’d much rather see him succeed than the guy standing over him at practice screaming at him after he’d blocked his shot (see his Introduction). Shirley mentions that it would have been nice to have a kindred spirit on the sidelines to crack jokes with. I would have been happy to oblige.

Bad Dream

Been having some strange dreams lately. One featured a trip to a remote blues bar with my dad that will get its own entry in time. Another one this morning saw me spending some quality time with Kate from “Lost” out on their deserted island. I think I was consoling her as she was torn between her feelings for Jack and Sawyer.

Either of these are a fresh change of pace to my usual occurring dreams, where either all my teeth fall out or I’m driving cars with no brakes. Interpret as you will.

But the dream I want to address here is one I had earlier this week. I don’t remember many details, and I barely remember the context, but the experience left me quite rattled. See, all I recall is having an awkward conversation with a man in some sort of public place. It could have been a bus, a train station, or a Chucky Cheese, for all I know. I really just don’t remember.

What I do know is that I felt very disappointed in the conversation, almost as if I harbored a sense of foreboding about the entire thing, though (in the dream) I couldn’t identify why.

Then the man opened his jacket and revealed a half-dozen rows of explosives, and I had my answer.

Best as I can tell, the man I was speaking to in my dream was a suicide bomber. (Or “homicide bomber”, depending on the political stance you want to take). Once I saw those explosives, I knew in no uncertain terms that I was about to die. A somber feeling that combined disappointment and understanding swept through me, and then the dream was over.

There was no dramatic jerk awake, no horrified cold sweat. The “moment of truth” neither came nor even got close enough to scare me. It was just that feeling, that sense of “well, this is it”, that I was left with.

In one fell swoop, I felt as if I’d finally gotten an answer for every issue that felt unresolved in my life. No concrete “career”. No marriage. No real fame and fortune. Plenty of blessings and great memories, sure, but at that moment I knew why I’d never found my way down certain paths.

I wasn’t meant to. I was meant to get blown to Hell by some whack-job.

Obviously this dream has some connection to my abstract view of death—to this day, I have never attended a funeral—but I think it may have been specifically brought on by the twenty minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” I caught Saturday night before going to the Epic Summer Film Festival (which was, by contrast, quite a lively event). I was fortunate enough to catch the infamous Omaha Beach sequence, where Allied troops are being blown to bits left and right while Tom Hanks tries to get his men through the battle lines. Even edited for cable, it is a difficult thing to watch. What strikes me about the whole thing—other than the creative ways Spielberg blows everyone up—is the nihilistic way everyone gets killed. Here are hundreds if not thousands of promising young men, leveled scores at a time without a second thought. One second they’re America’s best and brightest, with hopeful families at home and the American Dream on their shoulder, then the next second they’re in pieces on some French beach.

This isn’t meant to be a commentary on the morality of war, far from it. In fact, if there was one complaint I had with Spielberg’s film, it’s that you never got a real sense of what the men were fighting and dying for: namely, to stop a horrible, horrible menace from continuing and spreading one of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen. No one on that beach died for nothing.

What bothers me, though, is that all my life I have felt this sense that I was meant to become something “great”, that I had some pronounced role to play in mortality. Usually I’ve been shortsighted enough to assume that meant I was going to play pro basketball or be a movie star. I certainly haven’t given sufficient credence to the idea that anyone who lives the life of a worthy husband and father is a real hero.

Over time, my more material aspirations have eroded. I used to draw up floor plans of the mansion I would build one day, but that stopped when I spent six months in a one-bedroom apartment in Kankakee, Illinois with a twelve-inch mold spot on the ceiling over my bed. I still thrill at the energy created at Jazz games and Star Wars movies, but the stories I hear of “the life” make me hesitate to inject myself into that world full-time. Still, I feel driven—if not obligated—to do something notable with my talents. Something that stands out.

It’s been very difficult to reconcile these notions, especially when I am reminded that at any given moment, I could be called out of the game and sent home.

* * *


Last spring I watched the Jazz battle the Houston Rockets in the first round of the NBA playoffs. As I watched a number of calls go in the direction of Houston’s 7’6” center Yao Ming, I found myself thinking a familiar thought: “yeah, if I was seven feet tall, I could do that, too. Probably a lot better. Everything you have was given to you.”

But for the first time, a different thought followed: “Josh, you’ve been given some talents, too. Who’s looking at you and saying the same thing?”

I can take care of living things

This morning I went to water my bamboo plant and realized that I have passed an important milestone. The problem is that I don’t know what that milestone is. See, I have had this same bamboo plant for several years now, and in spite of my pronounced lack of nurturing skills, it is still alive. I do not know how this reflects on my future capacity as a father.



Actually, to be more precise, the bamboo plant is 80% alive. When I first got it (a Christmas gift, perhaps?) it had five healthy bamboo stalks, firmly planted in a bed of small stones. In the time since, one of the stalks expired, probably because for a period of four months I failed to give my plant its necessary once-a-month watering.

So in terms of being a father, I guess this would be the equivalent of losing my child’s left leg to gangrene.

Thus, my track record with “responsibility for living things” has not been exemplary. Just ask the frog and fish I sustained for a year. I inherited them from my sister, who had tired of them. (This would reflect poorly on her potential mothering skills were it not for the fact that she has had near sole responsibility for a cockatiel—first dubbed “Baby Bundles”, then “Bundles”, now “Satan”—for upwards of seventeen years.)



I faithfully attended the needs of my frog and fish—dubbed “Confucius” and “River Man”, not respectively—for several months without incident. Then shortly after returning from a pilgrimage to Chicago I found River Man hovering stiffly near the bottom of his tank. About two weeks later Confucius took up permanent residence on the water’s surface. (Mental note: dead fish have more natural buoyancy than dead frogs).

I was struck that the two passed so closely to each other, in spite of the fact that to my knowledge, I had been faithful in feeding them. True, Confucius died almost immediately after I changed the water in his tank one afternoon, but I still suspect that he passed voluntarily out of respect for his departed friend. This is, after all, the same way my paternal grandparents want to go, which they remind me of on a weekly basis.

(My deep suspicion is that the deaths of Confucius and River Man were a protest of my neglectful treatment of their dream interpretation column, which I sincerely regret.)

So for now, the best I can do is celebrate however many months or years I have kept my little bamboo plant alive, taking comfort in this achievement while trying to avoid getting too psyched out by the real adult responsibilities of child-rearing so many of my friends are now managing. And on that note, I leave you with a shot I took of one of my auxiliary nephews, Simon Ostler, as he destroyed a generous serving of his first birthday cake.

I may not know anything about raising kids, but I know a funny picture when I see it.