about locker room talk

Shaquille O'Neal sits in shadows. The dimly lit locker room bench cold beneath his mass. A drop of sweat escapes his crown and slithers down his thic face skin. He lifts his chin and locks eyes with you. Opponents. Now you can prepare. Now you must prepare. Shaquille pulls out a two-gallon bucket of Icy Hot. He tactically pulls off the lid. He begins rubbing luxurious handfuls of Icy Hot on his arms. You maintain eye contact.

 

about dementia

I visit my parents and wake up in my childhood bedroom. I walk into the den. Dad, who has been awake for at least two hours, asks me, "Ok, what's next?" I get coffee. "Are you getting coffee?" This is soon followed with, "Are you about done drinking coffee? Are you reading the newspaper?" No more than 45 seconds pass before he asks for a status update. He wants to know what he should be doing ("What you're doing does not concern me, does it? You don't need me for that, do you?"). He follows me around.

He often wants me to stop doing what I am doing so that I will do something else. If he appears to be waiting for me to move, I will move; but when I move, he becomes suspicious of what I am doing and wants me to stop. "Don't worry with that. Get back to whatever you were doing. Ok, go!"

He is worse the next time I visit. He confuses his words and thoughts: "Did you make dinner sweet sixteen?" "Do you use your middle name today?" "In a few minutes, you'll have to take off your blouse. You're way behind."

He becomes disoriented and wants to undress in the middle of the day. Clothes are a fixation for him now. He fingers his shirt buttons and belt throughout the day. He sees you with a soda can; after each sip, he asks, "Are you done with that?" He wants to throw it away. He badgers me until I finish a bottle of water, and then, when mom opens a can of soda, he spits, "Goddammit! We don't have time for that!"

He checks the garage door. He pulls the window shades. He sits in every seat in the room, moving from here to there, sitting in three different seats within 15 minutes.

Dad seems to know his memory is gone. When mom tells him they will go to the store tomorrow, he responds, "My memory only lasts until the last syllable leaves your lips." He says, "Tell me this 2 minutes before we leave."

about being attached still at the roots

The blonde-headed young man slides self-consciously into frame. His eyes are pulled twice to the camera, furtively each time; he nods hair away from his face. He knows he is being seen but denies the seer. Finally, a casually intentioned look toward the camera's eye--mutually frank, unwise, and uninvested.

Recording themselves downtown, the boys were making memories, however forgettable in the grand scheme. It is that association between memory and place, time and space, that now leaves me missing home. My hometown: flawed but well planned grids of city streets; tree-heavy suburban neighborhoods where kids get excited about spending the night at friends'; where the beginning and the ending last until I die.

about being attached still at the roots

The blonde-headed young man slides self-consciously into frame. His eyes twice pulled to the camera, furtively each time, he nods hair away from his face. Knowing being seen but not acknowledging the seer. Until he does acknowledge with a casually intentioned look toward the camera's eye--mutually frank, unwise, and uninvested eyes.

Recording themselves downtown, the boys were making memories, however forgettable in the grand scheme. It is that association between memory and place, time and space, that now leaves me missing home. My hometown: flawed grids of city streets; tree-heavy suburban neighborhoods where kids get excited about spending the night at friends'; where it began and the ending lasts until I die.

Make sure you hear the national anthem.

“When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you.”
    ―Walter Payton

(coming from behind in the Super Bowl)

Michael Jordan might be a jerk and competitive to a fault, but the man knows greatness, and he knows how time distorts the collective memory of greatness. Here is a wonderful excerpt from a new ESPN "Outside the Lines" profile of professional basketball's greatest ever at age 50:

Over the next seven hours, all of it spent watching one basketball game after another, he's (Jordan) again pulled inward, on a Tilt-a-Whirl of emotion, mostly shades of anger, from active screaming to a slow, silent burn. He transforms from a businessman returning from the office -- Honey, I'm home! -- to a man on fire. The first sparks come from a "SportsCenter" debate, one of those impossible, vaguely ridiculous arguments that can, of course, never be won: Who's a better quarterback, Joe Montana or Tom Brady?

"I can't wait to hear this conversation," he says.

He stretches his legs out on the ottoman, wearing sweats and socks, and as one of the guys on television argues for Brady, Jordan laughs.

"They're gonna say Brady because they don't remember Montana," he says. "Isn't that amazing?"

Aging means losing things, and not just eyesight and flexibility. It means watching the accomplishments of your youth be diminished, maybe in your own eyes through perspective, maybe in the eyes of others through cultural amnesia. Most people live anonymous lives, and when they grow old and die, any record of their existence is blown away. They're forgotten, some more slowly than others, but eventually it happens to virtually everyone. Yet for the few people in each generation who reach the very pinnacle of fame and achievement, a mirage flickers: immortality. They come to believe in it. Even after Jordan is gone, he knows people will remember him. Here lies the greatest basketball player of all time. That's his epitaph. When he walked off the court for the last time, he must have believed that nothing could ever diminish what he'd done. That knowledge would be his shield against aging.

There's a fable about returning Roman generals who rode in victory parades through the streets of the capital; a slave stood behind them, whispering in their ears, "All glory is fleeting." Nobody does that for professional athletes. Jordan couldn't have known that the closest he'd get to immortality was during that final walk off the court, the one symbolically preserved in the print in his office. All that can happen in the days and years that follow is for the shining monument he built to be chipped away, eroded. Maybe he realizes that now. Maybe he doesn't. But when he sees Joe Montana joined on the mountaintop by the next generation, he has to realize that someday his picture will be on a screen next to LeBron James as people argue about who was better.

The debaters announce the results of an Internet poll, and 925,000 people voted. There was a tie: 50 percent said Montana and 50 percent said Brady. It doesn't matter that Montana never lost a Super Bowl or that, unlike Brady, he never faded on the biggest stage. Questions of legacy, of greatness, are weighted in favor of youth. Time itself is on Brady's side, for now.

Jordan shakes his head.

"That doesn't make any sense," he says.

That's good writing, and a compelling anecdote, considering it's about a guy sitting, watching TV. And what it says is so Goddamn true.


Notes:

Speaking of basketball and greatness, as the annual stupid NBA All-Star game approaches, let's remember the only rendition of the national anthem that ever mattered: Marvin Gaye at the 1983 game: