Grow the Game®

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on reddit
Share on whatsapp

Pass The Ginger Ale, A Blanket, And Some Competitive Fire

sick calls

On thing you never get back (unless you graduate and go live in your parents basement…not that there is anything wrong with that) are those days in middle school where you could pad downstairs and meekly say, “Mom, I don’t feel good.” That magic phrase meant you had the rest of the day to make the couch into an impromptu infirmary and watch The Price Is Right, Ed, and fifteen reruns of Saved By The Bell on TBS. School can’t follow you home on a sick day…work is another story.

I’m hoping for a time machine to take me back because instead of some cold ginger ale and Bob Barker, I’m answering work related emails and hacking up different shades of green mucus. Tasty.

But why not take a break and serenade you with some NyQuil induced ramblings. The little orange pixies dancing on top of my computer screen sure seem to think this is a good idea. (Pauses….Takes another swig…..mmm…..it’s like drinking medicated dish soap).

The writing process really does get easier after that second gulp.

Fear And Loathing From The Garden (Of Eden)

steadmen

Last night I made the short trek to famous Madison Square Garden to watch the Blazers crap the bed against the Knicks. The visitors from Rip City didn’t seem to care much and about halfway through it was clear that the Knicks were in for a cakewalk.  A few Gallinari threes later that was the case and the rout was on.  The Blazers were getting lit up like a Christmas tree by a goofy looking Italian teenager nicknamed “The Rooster”. Sigh… With only 9 players available, I kept my adult beverage drinking to a minimum in case Portland needed a 6’1 power forward to eat up some minutes. You never know.

27 pts in a loss. At least fantasy b-ball owners are happy.
27 pts in a loss. At least fantasy b-ball owners are happy.

As a rabid Portland fan let me give you a (not so) quick metaphor on how the 2009-10 season is going as the Blazer team bus pulled into the Empire State. Say the Blazers are a family stuffed in a van going on a 82 stop road trip. Right off the bat we lost two of the entertaining youngsters who always kept things light in the car (Nic Batum- out with a bum shoulder, Travis Outlaw – broken foot).  This was challenging but we figured that they would catch up down the line and we kept moving.

Then the oldest sibling (star Brandon Roy) starts bitching because his younger brother (Oden) has just gone through a growth spurt and keeps touching his armrest and changing the channels on the DVD player. This whole time the new guy in the van (Free Agent signee Andre Miller) is sulking in the back seat because he wanted to sit up front instead of Daddy’s favorite (incumbent starting PG Steve Blake).

Right when you think things couldn’t get worse, Dad’s back starts acting up and he get’s left by the side of the road too (Coach- Nate McMillen, missed road trip with ruptured Achilles) so that mean’s Mom is driving the bus (Assistant Coach Dean Demopoulos), then everyone gets a phone call alerting them that the guy funding the entire trip is really sick and future funding is in quesiton (owner Paul Allen – recently diagnosed with cancer) and then the curious younger brother with a history of health trouble (Oden) falls out the window and ends up getting driven over by a passing semi truck with Kentucky plates that read “BOWIE”.

Now the van is vaguely empty, dispirited, and filled with a bunch of people who are so beaten down that you wonder just how the hell they are going to make it to the end of the journey, let alone accomplish all the things they set out to do along the way.

Or maybe I’m just overreacting. Serenity now. Serenity now. Ok, lets move on to less depressing things like celebrity sightings!

head_of_stateIf you’ve never been to The Garden then add it to your sports bucket list right now. It’s old school in every best way possible. That means it’s ancient and has avoided the major renovations that make all modern arenas cavernous and crappy, the luxury boxes are stuffed way up in the rafters so all the “normal” fans get the best seats in the house. Even if a depressing number of those normal fans are all suits with corporate tickets.

The celeb sightings included Chris Rock who was introduced with AC/DC’s “For Those About To Rock” blaring on the Jumbotron…possibly the most uncreative intro ever. Chris should sue the person who chose that song for further destroying his dwindling street cred.. oh wait Head of State already accomplished that one so we’re good.

Also in attendance were Celine Dion, Spike Lee (of course), Rihanna, and some 14 year old emo rocker punk (later told his name was Justin Biebe) who made an entire section of tweens raise their voices to a glass shattering pitch.

I don’t celeb watch much so in honor of the US Weekly in all of us lets steal a segment from The Colbert Report shall we? It’s a a quick game of:

“Tip Of The Hat, Wag Of The Finger”

tip of the hatA Tip Of My Hat to Rihanna

Rihanna was sitting pretty close to me and much of the game I spent talking to my buddy Eli and just trying to wrap our heads around her and her hottness. First off it’s a little off-putting when someone is that famous and yet only 19.  I’m only 24 and already I feel like an old perv just typing that sentence…one sec. (gulp of NyQuil) OK, good to go.  At one point she was offered a beer by an unsuspecting waiter and quickly declined.  Gotta be on your game at all times I guess. Tiger Woods would be proud. For someone who is so big time and dolled up 24/7, she gave off a surprising girl next door quality that I didn’t expect. Despite causing a near riot under the basket Rihanna only rolled with a friend/publicist in her posse and one burly bodyguard who may or may not have been packing heat. A tip of the hat to her for coming off as relatively normal. +1

Wag of Finger

A Wag Of My Finger to the Knicks t-shirt cannon brigade

Celine Dion was sitting right in-between Chris Rock and Spike Lee in the uber-famous people floor seats you only have at Knick or Laker games.  She had a blank smile on her Canadian face that said “These American’s sure play a funny kind of hockey” for most of the game. That’s fine though. No harm, no foul.

However, during the NBA mandated “t-shirt gun coming at your face!”-timeout, one of the dorky looking male cheerleaders made a point to hand Celine a t-shirt instead of firing it out of the gun. She clutched that thing for the next 20 mins, probably thinking it was some kind of exotic Persian rug rubber banded up for her convenience. I’m sure the maid at her Park Avenue Hotel is really going to enjoy the hell out of the $2 Knicks shirt when she finds it in the garbage tomorrow morning.

Note to t-shirt cannon guy: those 50 screaming 12 year olds would have appreciated your crappy t-shirt more than a Canadian who’s net worth is the larger than the GDP of a small African nation.

celine_tshirt
I smile because I have no idea what is happening right now!

That’s about all I can handle for now.  Next, I’m going to plow through a few episodes of MTV’s “The Jersey Shore” (thoughts on that gem of a show later) and maybe call my Mommy collect.  See if she can Fed-Ex some Canada Dry out to the east coast stat.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the author
: When not trying to “put points on your face” a’la Spanish sensation Rudy Fernandez, Co-Founder Crave is mixing it up and working to keep the S.S. Lax All Stars sailing smoothly. He is known for lax’ing from West Linn, to Eugene, Manhattan, Tahoe and back again. Favorite motto? Just like Warren Zevon always said, “Enjoy every sandwich”.