I worry I have broken the bone that cares that you read what I say.
Pouring over these poems that other people write,
watching the way we choose to fix the window
through which we are perceived
it is so obvious, your love
the way she moves in your mind
and she knows.
So the truth is dressed, the angle tilted
you play at being obscure, vague
the dim, one-language
of the constantly waking up at night
I do not write her letters anymore.
Feel defeated, completely, by knowing she knows -
how it is we do not talk, the way we do not smile
the absence entire of touch
so I move away from the sound
no longer entertain it.
It pains me to see you do it still,
how many years from that first glance
some joyous accident in body
why do we not let this go?
Silence is not love.
The things she leaves unsaid
unwritten
the lipless, duskwords you read into -
these are not a window you have climbed through
this is nowhere for you to sleep.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Not to be confused with 'Resolutions'...
This is more a list of things that, with the New Year rolling in, I intend to do or pay better attention to...let's call them...'Resolutions'.
shit.
1. Talk less in public.
2. Talk significantly less when I am by myself...ideally not at all. Baby steps.
2a. Listen better - what a neat trait, 'being a good listener', what an unfortunate thing to realize you are not.
3. Better manage grief.
4. Look at the horizon when walking - this is pretty neat and you should try it, unless you do it already, in which case you should look at a constantly shitting spot of ground 5 feet in front of you while you walk, for the sake of comparison.
5. Bullshit less, personal life, job, etc - this is a broad call to competency and production, i.e. write more, read more, be better, boast less
6. Stop biting my nails - not just that, manicure them, keep them clean, be classier, be space shuttle level.
7. Get back into college - don't let it be 2011 with a bunch of excuses.
8. Make less excuses by avoiding their necessity.
9. Hair cut?
10. Realistically pursue publication.
I don't generally roll into the new year intent on changing a lot - though I am not a great manifester of dynamic change in my own life, I tend to be consistently aware of the things I would like to be and how - or at least, have been over the last few years. Perhaps settling into this new 12 month stretch isn't a bad way to jump start it, though.
Another should be attempting to stop categorizing the things my brain does in piles of 'correct', 'weakness' and 'unacceptable' - here's me looking at this wide world viewing the turning of a particular moon around the earth as some revelation of change...I can't shake how little the thing we are standing on, and the vastness through which it hurtles, cares about a disco ball falling off the top of a building in New York.
Pessimism is, I think, so comforting because it is readily applicable in every situation. Let's get rid of that, too, shall we?
shit.
1. Talk less in public.
2. Talk significantly less when I am by myself...ideally not at all. Baby steps.
2a. Listen better - what a neat trait, 'being a good listener', what an unfortunate thing to realize you are not.
3. Better manage grief.
4. Look at the horizon when walking - this is pretty neat and you should try it, unless you do it already, in which case you should look at a constantly shitting spot of ground 5 feet in front of you while you walk, for the sake of comparison.
5. Bullshit less, personal life, job, etc - this is a broad call to competency and production, i.e. write more, read more, be better, boast less
6. Stop biting my nails - not just that, manicure them, keep them clean, be classier, be space shuttle level.
7. Get back into college - don't let it be 2011 with a bunch of excuses.
8. Make less excuses by avoiding their necessity.
9. Hair cut?
10. Realistically pursue publication.
I don't generally roll into the new year intent on changing a lot - though I am not a great manifester of dynamic change in my own life, I tend to be consistently aware of the things I would like to be and how - or at least, have been over the last few years. Perhaps settling into this new 12 month stretch isn't a bad way to jump start it, though.
Another should be attempting to stop categorizing the things my brain does in piles of 'correct', 'weakness' and 'unacceptable' - here's me looking at this wide world viewing the turning of a particular moon around the earth as some revelation of change...I can't shake how little the thing we are standing on, and the vastness through which it hurtles, cares about a disco ball falling off the top of a building in New York.
Pessimism is, I think, so comforting because it is readily applicable in every situation. Let's get rid of that, too, shall we?
easylover,she'llgetaholdonyoubelieveit
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 1:47pm
Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I've ever written."
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and
parents will. Stay in touch..
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck..
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their
journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God
never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is
up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no
for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.
Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words:
'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business..
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did
or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37.. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."
Its estimated 93% won't forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will,
forward this with the title '7%'.
I'm in the 7%.
Remember that I will always share my spoon with you!
Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.
Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I've ever written."
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and
parents will. Stay in touch..
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck..
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their
journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God
never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is
up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no
for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.
Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words:
'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business..
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did
or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37.. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."
Its estimated 93% won't forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will,
forward this with the title '7%'.
I'm in the 7%.
Remember that I will always share my spoon with you!
Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
In which the internet gets for really real.
In acknowledging the barreling pace of mortality, what have you done about it?
I went back to the gym.
It's astonishing how quickly 4 nights a week turns into none when one is not watching oneself - and how quickly one's devout adjustment in diet 180s and suddenly one is a fatty again. Like lightning! The body must be trained so long before it learns. Am still much stronger than I know what to do with - there is no small measure of joy in bouncing around feeling relatively lethal, back to the place where I am confident I could move necessary weights and pull doors off hinges if so prompted by situation. Am probably not ready to play at jaws-of-life, but it's good to feel that way - all this moving metal about and hulking around and feeling vaguely predatory. It's a good way to wash out the days.
Work has been close to horrifying - long hours and little satisfaction, it's consuming my conversations and seems to be all I think about; thus the gym and the rededication to being a bit more brutish is doubly welcome. What is missed most immediately is the energy - bouncing out of bed no matter the hour, being bright-eyed after that work day is over - life is much more lived, even if 2 hours a day are spent somewhat sweaty and in the tireless pursuit of lifting lumps of metal in tightly constricted patterns, it feels good.
Am still not pretty. Working on it.
Perhaps surprising no one, the writing has stalled - have two poems circling my head about Memphis and Manhattan, the punishing audacity in what I spent so long coloring love, how hard it is to properly eloquate what it is to act this fool. Am trying to find a balance between the earnest and less dangerous than I thought needing another person and the...blind possessiveness that seems to mark my earlier 'relationships' - which is to say the girls I pined after so miserably without a care for what they thought about the situation. I feel so young sometimes and usually about love - then so old looking back at who it was thought I could just...disregard the things in front of me, hoping on some song lyric resolution.
My love is no less unique for being my own.
Since my father passed I have been hedging around the things I feel might name me a man to whatever wind is listening - relinquishing some of these selfish ideas, adjusting the way it is I see those I purport to love, allowing a little desperate longing along the way. Think I know, now, what. But wonder how am seen in return. I'm sad a lot. I am confident when I tell myself that being alone is alright if I get this one more chance - but so scared at the time flying by if it turns out I am wrong and never get it.
All said and done, I am pretty sure it's still worth it.
I went back to the gym.
It's astonishing how quickly 4 nights a week turns into none when one is not watching oneself - and how quickly one's devout adjustment in diet 180s and suddenly one is a fatty again. Like lightning! The body must be trained so long before it learns. Am still much stronger than I know what to do with - there is no small measure of joy in bouncing around feeling relatively lethal, back to the place where I am confident I could move necessary weights and pull doors off hinges if so prompted by situation. Am probably not ready to play at jaws-of-life, but it's good to feel that way - all this moving metal about and hulking around and feeling vaguely predatory. It's a good way to wash out the days.
Work has been close to horrifying - long hours and little satisfaction, it's consuming my conversations and seems to be all I think about; thus the gym and the rededication to being a bit more brutish is doubly welcome. What is missed most immediately is the energy - bouncing out of bed no matter the hour, being bright-eyed after that work day is over - life is much more lived, even if 2 hours a day are spent somewhat sweaty and in the tireless pursuit of lifting lumps of metal in tightly constricted patterns, it feels good.
Am still not pretty. Working on it.
Perhaps surprising no one, the writing has stalled - have two poems circling my head about Memphis and Manhattan, the punishing audacity in what I spent so long coloring love, how hard it is to properly eloquate what it is to act this fool. Am trying to find a balance between the earnest and less dangerous than I thought needing another person and the...blind possessiveness that seems to mark my earlier 'relationships' - which is to say the girls I pined after so miserably without a care for what they thought about the situation. I feel so young sometimes and usually about love - then so old looking back at who it was thought I could just...disregard the things in front of me, hoping on some song lyric resolution.
My love is no less unique for being my own.
Since my father passed I have been hedging around the things I feel might name me a man to whatever wind is listening - relinquishing some of these selfish ideas, adjusting the way it is I see those I purport to love, allowing a little desperate longing along the way. Think I know, now, what. But wonder how am seen in return. I'm sad a lot. I am confident when I tell myself that being alone is alright if I get this one more chance - but so scared at the time flying by if it turns out I am wrong and never get it.
All said and done, I am pretty sure it's still worth it.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Death was waiting for me. He got in the car, I said 'Want to go to IHOP?' He said, 'Sure thing.'
She is sporty and hard-line attractive, speaks well, Harvard grad - and when, after a short conversation about wine, she introduces herself I am reminded again that I am wired slightly askance the norm.
'What's your name?' she says, offering a hand, 'Mike.' I respond, attempting a not too firm, but still firm enough that I obviously go to the gym all the time because those legs says she pretty obviously goes to the gym all the time handshake. 'I'm Jessica, thanks.'
And then she leaves. Doesn't buy anything.
Why do all strange women feel like opportunity? Why can't I just be cool? Why is it when I am just cool I get worried that the girl I might spend the rest of my life with walked away and I didn't do anything? Am constantly beset by the 'be cool' and 'be confidently active'...paradigm? I think that's the word.
All my language escapes me when vague connections, so tentative, are severed. Will she be back? What if I had worn a more flattering sweater? Why am I so lonely all the time? Why doesn't anyone call me on my birthday? How can I logically assume someone wants to be romantically involved with me for the rest of our lives when I don't listen, am largely selfish and am beset by all sorts of anxieties and, for all intents and purposes, have no future.
What I meant to say was
'Hi, i'm Mike, I have a ton of problems that I want to fix without working at, I build walls between myself and those closest to me because my moral standards seem at odds with what all normal people consider morals and though I talk a great game, I'm half cling, half loner. I think you're troublingly pretty, could we hang out sometime and maybe forget everything I said?'
Perhaps the saddest thing was learning that drinking didn't help things like this. You can only fix what is broken with the sun up.
'What's your name?' she says, offering a hand, 'Mike.' I respond, attempting a not too firm, but still firm enough that I obviously go to the gym all the time because those legs says she pretty obviously goes to the gym all the time handshake. 'I'm Jessica, thanks.'
And then she leaves. Doesn't buy anything.
Why do all strange women feel like opportunity? Why can't I just be cool? Why is it when I am just cool I get worried that the girl I might spend the rest of my life with walked away and I didn't do anything? Am constantly beset by the 'be cool' and 'be confidently active'...paradigm? I think that's the word.
All my language escapes me when vague connections, so tentative, are severed. Will she be back? What if I had worn a more flattering sweater? Why am I so lonely all the time? Why doesn't anyone call me on my birthday? How can I logically assume someone wants to be romantically involved with me for the rest of our lives when I don't listen, am largely selfish and am beset by all sorts of anxieties and, for all intents and purposes, have no future.
What I meant to say was
'Hi, i'm Mike, I have a ton of problems that I want to fix without working at, I build walls between myself and those closest to me because my moral standards seem at odds with what all normal people consider morals and though I talk a great game, I'm half cling, half loner. I think you're troublingly pretty, could we hang out sometime and maybe forget everything I said?'
Perhaps the saddest thing was learning that drinking didn't help things like this. You can only fix what is broken with the sun up.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
"Take this down," said O'Neal. "My name is Shaquille O'Neal and Paul Pierce is the truth. Quote me on that and don't take nothing out. I knew he could play, but I didn't know he could play like this. Paul Pierce is the truth."
I am fairly certain the first few times I read this it was 'Paul Pierce is the motherfucking truth' which is why Shaq felt the need to specify that the whole quote be preserved - somehow the internet seems to filter everything through someone else's google settings and remove the functional vinegar from these things.
Even if he didnt say it, well, he meant it.
I left off talking about how reading The Book of Basketball - Bill Simmons' new book I came to and was forced to stop after the Paul Pierce entry. Bill Simmons currently has Pierce listed as the 54th member of a ranked Hall of Fame known hereforto as the 'Pyramid'. 54 is okay - I would have listed him after DJ, also, but just before Wade? I don't know - He makes some jumps in projection that I just can't fathom, but his basketball knowledge is markedly deeper than my own, so I'll allow it.
Actually, that last bit is total bullshit, I dont agree. Wade is an electric creator, a good defender, a stout competitor - but his greatest achievements in basketball to date is that he plays harder than his body can hold up to and that he figured out the refs would give him the Finals if he kept throwing himself at the floor. Pierce might be the toughest player in the modern NBA, with stories relative to Reed and Bird as far as 'how the hell did he come back from that' injuries mixed with high end pressure performances - so that's not even a rub, that's a blow out.
And Pierce, after his long and troubled career is finally getting credit for taking a championship - replete with his Game 1 omigodpaultorehisknee (though it should be noted that was in line with Paul's odd sense of the dramatic...let us not recall too hard the bandaged head incident...) - and it was taking, I know Ray played amazing, I know a lot of people wanted him to get the MVP, but that would have been ridiculous. Pierce owned that series on the defensive end and in the clutch over and over. It was...breathtaking.
Here is my major issue - what has Wade gone through? When did Wade become a man? Do Miami fans know? I don't think so. He hasnt been around long enough, he hasn't really dealt with adversity, per say - yes, knee injury, yes the team imploded after he wont the Championship....AFTER, HE WON ONE at, like, 24? Cry me a river.
For a moment let's ignore that Dennis Fucking Johnson is only 1 place above Wade...how can you compare Dwade's career with Pierce? I dont think that's realistic...here is a player....I'm going to start babbling. Listen. I am a fan of the New England Patriots. I enjoy pre-08 Red Sox baseball. Once upon a time I watched the Bruins.
I like Basketball.
I love Paul Pierce like he is a sibling. Or my very good friend - or like he was my hero. Because he sort of is - but not in a relatable way. I dont relate to him. We lack parallels. But more than any single athlete of the modern era, more than anyone I have ever watched in film, or on tv, or in the pursuit of athletics, he is a real, honest to goodness, person.
We, as Celtics fans, have watched his star rise, gutter, fall and come alight in redemption like no other - it takes a certain franchise to stick by a guy who is destroying himself and his career in front of the widest stages possible...and a certain player to realize it and respond. Paul Pierce suddenly realized that he wanted to retire in green. That he wanted that banner - the organization mattered to him.
I'm a young man - he is too - but this relationship bears no resemblance to any other I have as a fan. I'm proud of him. I cried and cried when they won the Championship, the body just reacted - I was teary, the game just ended the Ray Allen commercial played and I started weeping. They came back and Paul was named MVP and..oh man.
I wonder if I will ever appreciate a player this way - his glorious splash into the NBA as a high-energy scoring tweener guard/forward (with a ridiculous high-top fade he wore but never really owned), the odd providence that had him fall to us at 10. His promise, him almost dying in that nightclub, his return, the sullen, darker player that he became, the burden of all those banners, of the crumbled franchise, of expectation - watching his legacy tarnish and the effect it had on him, melting down against the Pacers, his anger, his petulence, and then all this.
How many athletes recover from the first fall? Especially in the NBA, so much money, so fast, such a destructive lifestyle - so many talents for the game are ruined because there is no one teaching classes on how to go from being impoverished or struggling to inconceivably wealthy. To suffer those emotional pitfalls and also the physical - to recover from the stabbing, to be the heart of a badly damaged organization, floundering through it's worst years - let alone to think of losing another star so tragically - we have the unparalleled luxury of watching his success, of having stood by, of having been there the whole time.
If you were from a different town, I doubt it would make sense - in the same way that it is difficult to understand the quality of someone's game without watching them all the time to see the subtle nuances, the breaks in the step, I imagine it would be much harder to notice changes in character, seeing Paul go from all that was left of the Celtics to just...a Celtic. It took a long time, years, and it is time not often granted a player. And to be so instrumental in returning meaning to that word, that jersey and our town.
Am profoundly moved by Pierce's story - I cant think of anything quite like it, how narrowly he avoided being just another tragic figure in Boston's basketball history, and came to be one of it's favorite sons. And if not that, at least mine - I dont have a proper description for my reaction to his success, when Paul Pierce lights it up in a game, I get silly - it's like my little brother, supposing I had one, was tearing it up down the lane for a series of improbably ugly and-one drives. I like it when national announcers recognize some measure of his game - it's hard to deal with someone not from here appreciating his preternatural ability to get his defender off the ground, or the way he finishes drives desperately looking for contact - just his toughness.
Because that's what I appreciate most, I think, is all he managed to endure to find himself, now, suddenly accepted, suddenly fully appreciated.
I am fairly certain the first few times I read this it was 'Paul Pierce is the motherfucking truth' which is why Shaq felt the need to specify that the whole quote be preserved - somehow the internet seems to filter everything through someone else's google settings and remove the functional vinegar from these things.
Even if he didnt say it, well, he meant it.
I left off talking about how reading The Book of Basketball - Bill Simmons' new book I came to and was forced to stop after the Paul Pierce entry. Bill Simmons currently has Pierce listed as the 54th member of a ranked Hall of Fame known hereforto as the 'Pyramid'. 54 is okay - I would have listed him after DJ, also, but just before Wade? I don't know - He makes some jumps in projection that I just can't fathom, but his basketball knowledge is markedly deeper than my own, so I'll allow it.
Actually, that last bit is total bullshit, I dont agree. Wade is an electric creator, a good defender, a stout competitor - but his greatest achievements in basketball to date is that he plays harder than his body can hold up to and that he figured out the refs would give him the Finals if he kept throwing himself at the floor. Pierce might be the toughest player in the modern NBA, with stories relative to Reed and Bird as far as 'how the hell did he come back from that' injuries mixed with high end pressure performances - so that's not even a rub, that's a blow out.
And Pierce, after his long and troubled career is finally getting credit for taking a championship - replete with his Game 1 omigodpaultorehisknee (though it should be noted that was in line with Paul's odd sense of the dramatic...let us not recall too hard the bandaged head incident...) - and it was taking, I know Ray played amazing, I know a lot of people wanted him to get the MVP, but that would have been ridiculous. Pierce owned that series on the defensive end and in the clutch over and over. It was...breathtaking.
Here is my major issue - what has Wade gone through? When did Wade become a man? Do Miami fans know? I don't think so. He hasnt been around long enough, he hasn't really dealt with adversity, per say - yes, knee injury, yes the team imploded after he wont the Championship....AFTER, HE WON ONE at, like, 24? Cry me a river.
For a moment let's ignore that Dennis Fucking Johnson is only 1 place above Wade...how can you compare Dwade's career with Pierce? I dont think that's realistic...here is a player....I'm going to start babbling. Listen. I am a fan of the New England Patriots. I enjoy pre-08 Red Sox baseball. Once upon a time I watched the Bruins.
I like Basketball.
I love Paul Pierce like he is a sibling. Or my very good friend - or like he was my hero. Because he sort of is - but not in a relatable way. I dont relate to him. We lack parallels. But more than any single athlete of the modern era, more than anyone I have ever watched in film, or on tv, or in the pursuit of athletics, he is a real, honest to goodness, person.
We, as Celtics fans, have watched his star rise, gutter, fall and come alight in redemption like no other - it takes a certain franchise to stick by a guy who is destroying himself and his career in front of the widest stages possible...and a certain player to realize it and respond. Paul Pierce suddenly realized that he wanted to retire in green. That he wanted that banner - the organization mattered to him.
I'm a young man - he is too - but this relationship bears no resemblance to any other I have as a fan. I'm proud of him. I cried and cried when they won the Championship, the body just reacted - I was teary, the game just ended the Ray Allen commercial played and I started weeping. They came back and Paul was named MVP and..oh man.
I wonder if I will ever appreciate a player this way - his glorious splash into the NBA as a high-energy scoring tweener guard/forward (with a ridiculous high-top fade he wore but never really owned), the odd providence that had him fall to us at 10. His promise, him almost dying in that nightclub, his return, the sullen, darker player that he became, the burden of all those banners, of the crumbled franchise, of expectation - watching his legacy tarnish and the effect it had on him, melting down against the Pacers, his anger, his petulence, and then all this.
How many athletes recover from the first fall? Especially in the NBA, so much money, so fast, such a destructive lifestyle - so many talents for the game are ruined because there is no one teaching classes on how to go from being impoverished or struggling to inconceivably wealthy. To suffer those emotional pitfalls and also the physical - to recover from the stabbing, to be the heart of a badly damaged organization, floundering through it's worst years - let alone to think of losing another star so tragically - we have the unparalleled luxury of watching his success, of having stood by, of having been there the whole time.
If you were from a different town, I doubt it would make sense - in the same way that it is difficult to understand the quality of someone's game without watching them all the time to see the subtle nuances, the breaks in the step, I imagine it would be much harder to notice changes in character, seeing Paul go from all that was left of the Celtics to just...a Celtic. It took a long time, years, and it is time not often granted a player. And to be so instrumental in returning meaning to that word, that jersey and our town.
Am profoundly moved by Pierce's story - I cant think of anything quite like it, how narrowly he avoided being just another tragic figure in Boston's basketball history, and came to be one of it's favorite sons. And if not that, at least mine - I dont have a proper description for my reaction to his success, when Paul Pierce lights it up in a game, I get silly - it's like my little brother, supposing I had one, was tearing it up down the lane for a series of improbably ugly and-one drives. I like it when national announcers recognize some measure of his game - it's hard to deal with someone not from here appreciating his preternatural ability to get his defender off the ground, or the way he finishes drives desperately looking for contact - just his toughness.
Because that's what I appreciate most, I think, is all he managed to endure to find himself, now, suddenly accepted, suddenly fully appreciated.
Observations -
1. Bill Simmons is my favorite sports writer by a long shot - there aren't really any comparisons, which speaks, in part, to how integration between the media and the athletes they cover has tempered the quality of storytelling dramatically; the members of the media with the greatest access (and Simmons touches on this in his book, which helped solidify for me some of this idea particularly) begin to think they are part of the act, develop relationships, start worrying about keeping their spot - think about, say, Senators or 'Nebulous Public Officials', who become engrossed in the mechanism of government, the money and ease that it brings, then have their aspirations for public good neutered by the phrase 'political suicide' - which is code for standing up for something you actually believe in and losing your meal ticket.
The same applies to sportswriters - this is why there is so much boy club butt-slapping and softball questioning - I think everyone wrote something direct about Kobe's rape trial while it was going on, but the same folk wilted into ZAMGIT'SKOBEANDIMINTERVIEWINGHIM mode in the years that follow - folks from LA dont even talk about it, it never gets mentioned, ever. Same with Ray Lewis, you know, stabbing two men to death in front of a church. Ostensibly in self-defence. Ostensibly with the power of god guiding his hand. No sportswriter today will even bring it up while a stadium full of fans in Baltimore, who should know better than anyone about random stabbings, goes completely bananas.
But I digress - I disagree with Bill Simmons on one point in particular - Lebron is not very good at basketball. A streak shooter with...questionable range, poor decision-making skills, an unparalleled ariel game and tremendous, game altering physical gifts. He really is a unique animal - I doubt a human being has ever been born more ideally suited to the pursuit of athletics, 6ft8, but dimensionally more similar to a well-built man at 6ft2 - there's no weakness in his carriage, sound joints, broad shoulders, long arms - but also a barrel chest, good hips - Lebron is built like a new-era superhero. He might legitimately be the fastest player in the league in a straight line, has an as-of-et undetermined max game height for leaping, has great timing from the ground to the point of conflict - be it the basket, a block or a ball.
Everyone who watches the game knows these things even if they dont know they know them - his gifts are so obvious. But he isnt a great shooter, and worse, he picks odd times to let people know; sometimes he appears to get bored, taking long jumpers when he could easily drive the basket - against the Celtics he almost never goes to the hoop against Pierce, who is not a good enough defender to rule that move out, though definetly good enough to make top-tier players question it...but that's it, he's supposed to be the best player, and yet when facing another star who can almost hang with him, who will take a charge, he defers or takes oddly placed jumpers - oddly because he doesnt yet (this is from an outsiders perspective, I dont watch him play everyday) have hot spots on the floor where he is going to hit from everytime - like having go-to post moves, shooters have spots where opponents grimace when they get the ball, if Pierce gets the ball at the top of the key, you could literally jump on him and hit him with a bottle, and he'd drain it, thump his chest and go to the line. It just is. Lebron doesnt have that, maybe it will come with age, but I wonder if it will have to.
What Lebron does have is the leagues most coveted 'Platnium Free Throw Pass' - where he can, at anytime past halftime, take the ball, run directly into the pack of defenders inside of ten feet from the basket and draw a foul. Part of this is that unreasonable athleticism, there's some argument, im sure, that he *could* score, so that must have been a foul - but James as a late game threat is mostly the constant threat of free-throws - points off the clock. Kobe has this, Pierce has it, Iverson did...thing is, they put the time in and earned it. Lebron was bequeethed his title long before he'd put the minutes in to earn it - it's one of the ugly things about the NBA and why I am so worried referees are going to carry a really unbalanced Cavaliers team to the Championship because it's time for Lebron to win one.
It's not a good team and he's not actually as dominant as MJ ever was or Kobe can be - he's just remarkably athletic and is so shocking to behold, no one talks about the weird 3-point shots and why he only drives on Ray Allen when they play the Celtics. It's not hard to score 41 pts when no one else on your team is capable of scoring and that's where they are at now. Yet this awful team with no chemistry WILL make the playoffs and I dont want to see them.
Simmons ranks Lebron up there with the greats already and I just dont understand why - I dont think he's earned it. I'll not question his impact on games or the things he's capable of - it's the way in which he is deferred to simply because Nike demanded his ascension to that questionable NBA throne.
1. Bill Simmons is my favorite sports writer by a long shot - there aren't really any comparisons, which speaks, in part, to how integration between the media and the athletes they cover has tempered the quality of storytelling dramatically; the members of the media with the greatest access (and Simmons touches on this in his book, which helped solidify for me some of this idea particularly) begin to think they are part of the act, develop relationships, start worrying about keeping their spot - think about, say, Senators or 'Nebulous Public Officials', who become engrossed in the mechanism of government, the money and ease that it brings, then have their aspirations for public good neutered by the phrase 'political suicide' - which is code for standing up for something you actually believe in and losing your meal ticket.
The same applies to sportswriters - this is why there is so much boy club butt-slapping and softball questioning - I think everyone wrote something direct about Kobe's rape trial while it was going on, but the same folk wilted into ZAMGIT'SKOBEANDIMINTERVIEWINGHIM mode in the years that follow - folks from LA dont even talk about it, it never gets mentioned, ever. Same with Ray Lewis, you know, stabbing two men to death in front of a church. Ostensibly in self-defence. Ostensibly with the power of god guiding his hand. No sportswriter today will even bring it up while a stadium full of fans in Baltimore, who should know better than anyone about random stabbings, goes completely bananas.
But I digress - I disagree with Bill Simmons on one point in particular - Lebron is not very good at basketball. A streak shooter with...questionable range, poor decision-making skills, an unparalleled ariel game and tremendous, game altering physical gifts. He really is a unique animal - I doubt a human being has ever been born more ideally suited to the pursuit of athletics, 6ft8, but dimensionally more similar to a well-built man at 6ft2 - there's no weakness in his carriage, sound joints, broad shoulders, long arms - but also a barrel chest, good hips - Lebron is built like a new-era superhero. He might legitimately be the fastest player in the league in a straight line, has an as-of-et undetermined max game height for leaping, has great timing from the ground to the point of conflict - be it the basket, a block or a ball.
Everyone who watches the game knows these things even if they dont know they know them - his gifts are so obvious. But he isnt a great shooter, and worse, he picks odd times to let people know; sometimes he appears to get bored, taking long jumpers when he could easily drive the basket - against the Celtics he almost never goes to the hoop against Pierce, who is not a good enough defender to rule that move out, though definetly good enough to make top-tier players question it...but that's it, he's supposed to be the best player, and yet when facing another star who can almost hang with him, who will take a charge, he defers or takes oddly placed jumpers - oddly because he doesnt yet (this is from an outsiders perspective, I dont watch him play everyday) have hot spots on the floor where he is going to hit from everytime - like having go-to post moves, shooters have spots where opponents grimace when they get the ball, if Pierce gets the ball at the top of the key, you could literally jump on him and hit him with a bottle, and he'd drain it, thump his chest and go to the line. It just is. Lebron doesnt have that, maybe it will come with age, but I wonder if it will have to.
What Lebron does have is the leagues most coveted 'Platnium Free Throw Pass' - where he can, at anytime past halftime, take the ball, run directly into the pack of defenders inside of ten feet from the basket and draw a foul. Part of this is that unreasonable athleticism, there's some argument, im sure, that he *could* score, so that must have been a foul - but James as a late game threat is mostly the constant threat of free-throws - points off the clock. Kobe has this, Pierce has it, Iverson did...thing is, they put the time in and earned it. Lebron was bequeethed his title long before he'd put the minutes in to earn it - it's one of the ugly things about the NBA and why I am so worried referees are going to carry a really unbalanced Cavaliers team to the Championship because it's time for Lebron to win one.
It's not a good team and he's not actually as dominant as MJ ever was or Kobe can be - he's just remarkably athletic and is so shocking to behold, no one talks about the weird 3-point shots and why he only drives on Ray Allen when they play the Celtics. It's not hard to score 41 pts when no one else on your team is capable of scoring and that's where they are at now. Yet this awful team with no chemistry WILL make the playoffs and I dont want to see them.
Simmons ranks Lebron up there with the greats already and I just dont understand why - I dont think he's earned it. I'll not question his impact on games or the things he's capable of - it's the way in which he is deferred to simply because Nike demanded his ascension to that questionable NBA throne.
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