Basketball Tiger of the Ageless Sand Variety
By Evan Lovett
“Are you a
boy or a man?” I didn’t really have an answer for him. “You
look like a man, but you act like a boy.” I was only
nineteen, so I answered, “boy.” Unfortunately, summers have
passed since that question was posed by the Harlem
Globetrotter basketball toting kid at E.T. Park. E.T. Park,
given that moniker because it is where Elliot and Co. were
filmed polishing their bikes back in 1981. What a poignant
reminder of my glorious youth. I played ball there nearly
every day in the mid and late 90’s. The surface of the
court was an unforgiving white concrete slab, which claimed
hundreds of ankles, knees, and backs. But not mine. I
skied for rebounds and banged down low like a project pimp.
I was indestructible, running and jumping and tangling
myself within the limbs of my opposition, wrestling each
loose ball and engaging in a few altercations along the way.
I returned
to E.T. Park last Saturday to shoot around with an old
friend of mine.
My little
Globetrotter buddy was not present, he’s probably designing
an anti-Bush web site by now, eating Taco Bell and 100
pounds overweight. The once athletic prodigy now sits
stagnant and soda stained. Bush has preempted basketball,
and synthetic illumination supercedes sunlight. If he
wandered to E.T. Park today would he have anything to say to
me? If he did have an inquiry, my answer would be, “man.”
It would have to be. In the week since I played, my back
feels splintered and my knees buckled. I can barely walk,
and my neck is craned forward. My shoulders pop and crack.
These are not attributes of a boy. Last night, sprawled on
the floor after a long day at work, I could not manage a
comfortable position. My vertebrae were weeping, and my
brain was following suit. The agony of my back was barely
minimized by the three Advil I had just swallowed. Time to
occupy myself with television, and my fingers indulged
themselves in the exercise of remote control. I stopped at
a tribute to Ronald Reagan, and watched as he vehemently
addressed the nation at age 71. It was the beginning of his
tenure as President. The champion of leaders, seventy-one
years later. If you think about it, with all that was to
happen, from the struggles to being shot to sickness to joy
and re-election, it was as if his life was beginning then.
Beginning at 71. This was proper inspiration. I will play
basketball again, and I will play soon.
Tiger
Army’s new record, “III: Ghost Tigers Rise” is to be
released June 29th. A subsequent release tour is
slated to debut at the House of Blues on Sunset, July 10th.
Last I checked, tickets were still available. Not
interested? Last I checked, you’re a slaphappy, “Thong
Song” dancing debutante. It’s gonna be a raging riotous
rockabilly ransack romp of deaf dumb and blinding
proportion. Ok, if nothing else, it’ll be “pretty cool.” I
haven’t heard Tiger Army III, so I can’t speak on it. But
with the first two albums, “Tiger Army” and “II: Power of
Moonlight”, I have roared through California, making babes
weep and pregnant mothers splash the sidewalk. In fact,
your boy, Bush, suffers the blasphemy of our citizens while
it was me who hid Tiger Army LP’s deep in the caves of
Afghanistan. They are the weapons of mass
destruction. I gave a copy to Binny and the jets, that’s
why they’ve been so quiet recently. So enthralled that they
actually had something of substance to listen to, they
decided to chill. My next objective is to take another
Mid-East trip and drop a few Playstation 2 machines for
those thugs. Give them something to do other than plot,
that’s what I say. All they have is sand, and really, how
fulfilled would that make you? And not sand accompanied by
beach and babes and ocean blue. Sand. That’s it. I may
age, I may be a man, I may work all day and night to attain
the weekly-massage lifestyle for myself and my lady and my
present and future families. But I am not old. And neither
are you. I will see you thrashing to Tiger Army in the pit
on Sunset. I will see you feet above the ground blocking my
best attempt at a game-tying shot. And I will see you at
next year’s AdTech, looking younger and healthier than you
do today.
