Religulous

If only I had thought of that name for a movie: Religulous. It's worth at least 100K to the right documentarian. In this case, Bill Maher is that documentarian. Religulous is an unapologetically biased movie about the absurdities of organized religion. With such a big target, I'll be looking forward to at least a trilogy.

Middle-aged basketball

When someone asks me what I do for a living, I should answer that I'm a basketball player.

Between my job that pays and basketball, I care more about basketball. Basketball stresses me more. Basketball brings me more joy. I think about basketball more when I'm not doing it. I work at improving my basketball game more than my career.

But that's nothing: Listen to all the fucked up things I do related to basketball.

(1) Pre-game shits. Before every game, I not only take a dump but I take several dumps in quick succession. These are full-fledged craps and I take at least 4. I don't do that for any other event. This is for basketball games in my mostly middle-aged basketball league.

(2) To paraphrase the great Jim Kelly, I'm not superstitious: I just do what works. For me, I have a pair of red shorts that I never lose in. But it's not so simple that I wear the red shorts and thus ALWAYS win. I only wear the red shorts for certain games--not even all the big games. Why? I don't want to wear out the shorts' "winningness."

(3) I sleep like a baby except for basketball issues. If my mother is getting open heart surgery tomorrow, I'll sleep 10 restful hours. But god forbid I lose a game or have a big game the next day. I'll toss and turn all night replaying scenarios in my head.

(4) I always hurt. Lately, it's been a pulled hamstring. I limp around for months (loading up on ibuprofin for games) and sit on ice bags 7 days a week. I always have scratched up arms (nail-scratches are the bane of basketball players). I recently got stitches when a guy ripped off a chunk of my chin. One opponent smashed his forearm into my windpipe, crushing it, and forever changed my voice. And I keep playing.

(5) At least half my daily emails are to guys in my leagues talking about games, people, and issues.

(6) At least once a season, there's a pushing match that borders on a fight in my leagues. And even occasionally a fight. I've seen grown men throw punches at refs. I've had a guy intentionally twist my fingers trying to pull them off my hand. I saw a guy grab someone's ankle and give it a two hand torque, which sprained his ankle. Middle-aged men here.

(7) For me, buying a new pair of basketball sneakers is harder than buying weapons-grade plutonium. I try on 30 pairs at no fewer than 7 stores. I know the best stores. They are scattered across several malls in in the city. I buy at least 5 pairs during this process. I wear all of these. Then I throw 4 pairs out as inadequate. And once I have a good pair, I buy 4 of them because no fucking sneaker company keeps the same styles in stock. In this habit, I spend at least 700$/year. (I have the same process for basketballs, though I at least have Spalding loyalty and the NEVERFLAT ball shown above is clearly the best ball on the market now.)

Will I outgrow this? I'm 37 and it seems unlikely.

You want me to post?

So you want me to post? Fuck off motherfucker. It's hot as balls and I don't feel like it.

Disaster at the Belmont

Looking for some fun in the sun and maybe to witness a bit of history, yesterday, Hester and I drove up to the Belmont Stakes. For those of who don't know, the Belmont Stakes is the third leg in horce racing's triple crown (the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness being the other two). This year, Big Brown had a chance to be the first horse in 30 years (since Affirmed beat Alydar in 1978) to win all three - a pretty big deal (he didn't, but that is another story entirely). So, we decided to brave the 90 degree heat and 100 percent humidity, jump in Hester's new slick sporty roadster (1 day old Mazda Miata MX5 hardtop convertible), and take a 100 mile trip to the races. Big mistake. The results are summarized in my letter to the New York Racing Authority (which runs Belmont Park), reproduced below.

I thought I'd write you this morning to thank you for one of the worst experiences of my life (and my wife's life) yesterday at the Belmont. Whoever you have running Belmont Park and/or things for the Belmont Stakes' race day should be summarily fired. Every imaginable thing was done in an incompetent fashion demonstrating a complete lack of preparation and planning that resulted in the worst event I have ever attended. Off the top of my head:

1) When we arrived at the main parking lot, we were "greeted" by a guy or two in orange vests at the entrance who told us, simply, to drive down to the end of the lot. After that informative advice, we did not see a single parking lot attendant and were not given the slightest bit of direction on what to do or where to go. So, we started driving around the lot looking for parking only to learn two things in a 35 minute period. No. 1: by 1:30 p.m. there were no spots left (which we discovered by trial and error - no one told us the lot was full). No. 2: the aisles in the parking lot end in dead ends (no signage of this either), so we did a lot of cursing and backing up as we hunted in vain for a spot. You'd think that having run this event for 160 years, you'd have the foresight to put in place a system (like every major sporting venue) where parking lot attendants with flags direct you to your spot in an organized manner and then - and this is a key - close off the lot when its full (as opposed to having hapless people like us driving around in circles) and then direct us to alternative parking.

2) When we finally were able to escape from your main lot, we started driving around looking for an alternative. While we eventually stumbled upon the Blue Field Lot (a long distance behind the park), no one directed us to the lot nor told us that that lot existed. We just got lucky. Nice work. Again, all you needed was a couple of guys with flags directing those unlucky fools like us to the additional parking.

3) Yesterday was probably the hottest race day ever - a fact that had been accurately forecasted for the past week. Given this advance warning and with full knowledge that Big Brown was in line to win the Triple Crown (so the place would be packed), you had ample opportunity to make 100% sure that the place was fully stocked with water and other cold drinks. What did you do with this opportunity? Apparently nothing, as by 3 p.m. most of your concession venues were out of water and most had no functional soda machines, due to the biggest problem of the day - water pressure.

4) Shockingly, the restrooms in the Grandstand Area (where we had reserved seats) were non-functional due to lack of water pressure the whole day (a problem that is apparently- per some articles I read this morning - not a new development). So, on the biggest day of your year, on a day when the place was packed to the gills to see a horse go for the Triple Crown, there were no functioning bathrooms. The result was - as one Indian woman told my wife - septic conditions that were worse than in India - with unfortunate people having to use standard facilities like portipotties - conditions not unlike the New Orleans Superdome, post-Katrina. Hester chose to hold it in for over 5 hours.

5) Despite having a reserved seat in the Grandstands, we had trouble seeing the action as your so-called security staff (in our section it was a single, young African-American woman about 25) let anyone and everyone who did not pay for and did not have reserved seats come into the reserved seating area and stand in the stairwells, aisles, and front railings - completely blocking our views. And our whole section complained to that woman the entire day only to hear her consistent response, "What can I do, they are not listening to me." OUTRAGEOUS. What could she do? How about - like every other sporting venue - have ushers checking tickets - before the people enter the reserved seating area - which would keep out the general admission people - and then if anyone from the reserved seating was standing in the aisles or by the rails, they would be told to leave and go back to their seats. It's not rocket science. Instead, we had the pleasure of paying for reserved seats and not being able to see anything other than the backs of people who got the benefit of reserved seats without paying for them.

6) Worst of all was the fiasco of the drive home. Leaving your parking lot was the worst driving experience, bar none, that I have ever encountered. We were in the Blue Field Lot with about 1,000 other cars. To exit that lot, there was a single opening in a fence one car length wide that opened to a two lane (one lane each way) access road that was completely jam packed with cars. So, 1,000 cars had to battle and jockey with each other to somehow get out of that one opening, one car at a time, into a tiny road with cars not really moving. We were "lucky," however, as we started pretty close to that opening. It only took us 45 minutes to travel 200 feet to exit and get on the access road. Of course, once on the road, it took us another 45 minutes to get on Hempstead (four tenths of a mile away). So to recap, it took us 90 minutes to travel about five tenths of a mile (not to mention the three additional hours to drive the other 100 miles home - that's right it took us 4.5 hours to go 100 miles - 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m). It is absolutely inconceivable that you do not have a coordinated exit plan in place from this venue. You should have worked with state and local police to close off Hempstead to local traffic for the period right after the big race and you should have forced the people in the Blue Lot to go left to the exit area behind the park. You also should have had parking lot attendants stationed at key positions in the principal lots to maintain order and provide direction. I would not be surprised if there were road rage incidents galore yesterday.

In short, yesterday was a complete disaster that could have been avoided by a little bit of advance planning and adequate staffing. I'll never be back, but for the sake of future fans who might, I suggest that you never let this happen again. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Sam Johnson