5/17/5: Life is Hard, Son

On Sunday afternoon before the softball game, Big Jim Lang and I wasted an hour or two shooting baskets in beautiful Peter Cooper Village, interrupted for only a few minutes by a passing shower. As we lazily pumped up brick after brick from the three point line, I offered Jim the start of a theory of mine. The theory goes like this: one of the reasons I am such a mediocre athlete (along with bad genetics, a poor work ethic, little to no instruction, below average skills, and lousy conditioning) is that I think too much. More specifically, I worry too much.  I guess that's a large part of who I am, and sports are only a part of it. I'm not one of those guys who accidentally sends an embarrassing email to the whole company and then goes, "Whatever." I'm not one to say, "Let's leave early today, the boss is out" and then never looks back. No, I fucking worry. What if nobody's here to answer our phones when the boss calls in? What if there's an after hours crisis and we're not around to handle it? I can't help myself.

When I'm playing basketball, if I'm open from fifteen feet, instead of shooting, I'll often think, "What if I miss? It wouldn't be right of me to shoot this shot unless I was pretty sure I'd make it." Once I've thought that, I'm screwed.  I'll either pass the ball or miss the shot. Sports should be about playing, not thinking. Even with an anxious fellow like me, there are times where I forget everything and just start playing. And it's just absolute pleasure the whole time. For instance, Steve Nash was just playing the other night when he had 48 points.  You could see it in his eyes -- they were almost glazed over with delight as shot after shot found the net. He was pretty much lost in his sport. He threw up 28 shots and 20 went in. He also turned the ball over 9 times, which again goes to show that he was just out there playing. Not thinking of consequences. Not dwelling on mistakes. Just playing.

Some people see situations before them and say, "Sure, I could do that." If someone says, "Hey, I'll pay you ten grand to drive my car from New York to Ohio next week. Do you know how to drive a stick?" and they don't know how, they just nod and say, "Of course," figuring "How hard can it be? I'll learn as I go." Not me. I find myself thinking of every possible obstacle to success. Not enough people appreciate how difficult life really is -- even the simple things, if you give them enough thought. Maybe that's because most people are actually out there living it instead of thinking it.

But I worry.  Even when I'm just watching sports. When I see Derek Jeter stay down on a hard-hit grounder and handle the tough hop every damn time, it blows me away. It puts me on edge. I am unnerved at the casual excellence of the professional athlete. So much so that when these athletes fuck up in horrible, almost unimaginable ways it seems completely natural to me. One night a couple weeks ago, there was a sequence that reminded me how hard sports, and by extension life, really are.

At the end of the deciding Bulls-Wizards playoff game, there was an astonishing series of fuckups that actually freaked me out and caused cold sweat beads to form on my neck. The Bulls had the ball, tie game, 36 seconds left. They were in an excellent position to get a potential game-winning shot, and possibly to even go two possessions to one with the remaining time. They called a timeout to set up a special play. Unfortunately, Kirk Heinrich and Chris Duhon must have been in two different huddles, because Heinrich's inbounds pass hit Duhon in the back (fuckup #1) and was scooped up by Jared Jeffries, who soared in for a dunk to put the Wiz up two. As Jeffries flew in for the dunk, Duhon took a wild, meaningless, stupid swipe at the ball (fuckup #2), and was blessed by God not to be called for a foul on the play as well. The Bulls came down to try to set up a game-tying shot, but they overdribbled and Jannero Pargo panicked, forcing up a wild jumper that had no chance of going in (fuckup #3). The Wiz got the rebound and got the ball to Juan Dixon, a 90% FT shooter. He promptly missed 1 of 2 FT's, giving the Bulls hope (fuckup #4). So the Bulls were down 3 with approximately 7 seconds left. They actually got a decent shot at a three but missed it. Tyson Chandler got the offensive rebound for the Bulls with about 5 seconds left, and was immediately surrounded by Wizards defenders, even though he was standing around the foul line and a 2 pointer simply could not hurt the Wiz. The Wiz, by pressuring Chandler, left several three point shooters open (fuckup #5).  Chandler, not to be outfucked up by the Wiz, decided, "Screw the pass to the open three point shooter who could tie the game, I'm shooting a worthless turnaround 18 footer instead (fuckup #6)." He missed badly, and Gilbert Arenas got the rebound for Washington with about 3 seconds left. The game was all but over at this point, and Arenas decided to launch the ball in the air in triumph, assuming the clock would expire before the ball came down.  In theory, not a fuckup, a pretty smart play. But he only threw the ball about twenty feet in the air (fuckup #7) instead of fifty, and the ball landed out of bounds (fuckup #8 - the ball landing out of bounds would have given the Bulls possession if the refs determined that time remained) just as the clock was expiring. In fact, I believe the refs would have looked at the clock situation again on replay had the Wizards confetti cannon operator not prematurely shot his load right at the moment the ball came down (fuckup #9), sending the arena into a frenzy that was so loud and intense that the officials just snuck away (fuckup #10) without taking a look at exactly how much time, if any, remained when Arenas's lob returned to earth. That's at least ten fuckups, by players, refs, and the confetti cannon dude, in only 36 seconds.

Then later that night the Yankees, including Jeter, booted three ground balls in extra innings to lose a game.

It seems to me that people should be screwing up like this all the time.  Doesn't anyone understand how hard it is to do things?

***

West Coast reader TC writes in with some welcome criticism regarding the previous post, in which I lamented my diminishing intellectual firepower.

"...to function normally as a human being."

This is one of those nuggets of a phrase that former English majors used to enjoy unpacking, speaking of luggage. Oh the subtext, the underlying assumptions, the societal expectations, the bowshot falling so inadequately short of the mark, the structural vs. the deconstructed attempt to place critical parentheses on a time-flow-defined-yet-limitless universe. Where's my objective correlative?

Well, I believe now this homiletic little phrase serves mainly to remind us that we are all human, to some greater or usually much lesser degree. And to turn quasi-parental for a second, if yuh had kids yuh could blame on da little ones. Just like da rest of us.

TC

I think this is good-spirited, and it also forced me to learn what the word "homiletic" means, so I appreciate the input. Thank you.

***

Joe Monkeyweb asks, "Is Verbungle over?"

Well, Joe, thanks for asking. No, it's not over, not officially anyway. But I have been working real hard at the job over the last few days and it has tired me the hell out and left me inspirationless as well (as you can see from this halfhearted entry).  I got nothing. And I'll probably have nothing again tomorrow. As time goes on and life becomes more complicated, the bloggin' gets tough. This I now realize. By July I think we might be looking at a weekly post in this space. But first we have to finish the challenges that are in progress...so on to 'em!

I like people who throw down idiotic blanket judgments like, "There are two types of people: those who like Field of Dreams, and those that have no heart."* In this spirit, I offer: "There are two types of people: those who like banana-flavored Runts, and Nazis." Damn, now I've got a bunch of these running through my head. Twelve genius points to the person who comes up with the best example of a "There are two types of people: _____ and _____." You may begin answering immediately, and we will stop accepting answers at 11:59pm Tuesday night.

Oh, and for ten points, whodat on the left? Answers at noon HST please.

* This courtesy of ESPN's increasingly annoying Bill Simmons, who I still read fairly often although 92% of me can't stand the fucker. I will admit that here was a time when I actually looked forward to his columns.