humping around

I was on the fence tonight whether to blog up some stuff or go to bed, but then I spilled a beer and it got all over my new hoodie and some placemats, so I had to throw in a load of laundry. Now I have like an hour and a half whether I like it or not. Whether you like it or not.

Why don't I tell you about my weekend? It was pretty weekendy.

On Saturday, I went and played me some basketball, poorly. I didn't really fuck up or anything, I just barely registered. There was no point to me. If our game ever got turned into a movie, you would be like, "Why did they introduce that supporting character in that one scene and then never get back to him?" I didn't advance the plot at all. Maybe they're saving me for the sequel.

After one game I was sitting on the sideline, dripping sweat and trying to make small talk with a guy I know. I was like, "Man, I'm a step slow today...maybe two steps." Trying to be modest but also telling it like it is. He said, "Dude, you've been two steps slow for two years now." Ouch. I'll show him! Ah....fuck it, no I won't.

Then I was talking to another guy about the Knicks. Remember them? Tall, incompetent, irrelevant, unpleasant? Office is over on 33rd? Anyway, this guy was genuinely optimistic about the 2008-09 season, with D'antoni stepping in as coach and all.

"But the personnel..." I said. "They have two big fat center types who can barely move, one with a heart problem, and now they're gonna run? Yikes. It's all the same shitty dudes, I don't see them being competitive."

He said, "I think Nate Robinson's gonna play well. And I like David Lee. And the new Italian guy might be good. And Crawford..."

I was all, "OK man, if you think that's gonna be a good team..."

He said, "This is the time of year to have high hopes."

He's right. Of course, once they start playing games those hopes will fade fast. But why not at least be excited for a month? As he pointed out, this will be a good chance to see how much of a difference a coach can make. My guess: 5-6 games over the course of the season.

Thinking about Zach Randolph got me reminiscing about Knicks I've hated through the years. Greg Anthony will always be my least favorite Knick PG, but I think Charlie Ward deserves some special mention in any discussion of History's Most Loathsome Knicks. Not only did his low-bridge boxout on PJ Brown ignite the fight that cost us the '97 season, but then he took over the locker room with his anti-semitic and anti-woman-reporter bullshit. He was a hateful, small-minded little fuck, and...AND... he had virtually no game to speak of. That combination is unforgivable. Plus he had the charisma of a file cabinet. A file cabinet full of papers displaying the box scores of every game Charlie Ward ever played for the Knicks, with his stat line highlighted.

So a belated F you to C Ward.

Then Saturday night I knocked back a few bierce with some college pals at Tom & Jerry's. It was fun, but around 2:30 everybody (except me) started getting tired. I was about to enter the "rah rah let's tear the night open and throw burning garbage into its bleeding torso" section of the evening, but I sensed that there was no more life to be squeezed from this particular crew on this particular night. They had stuff to do on Sunday and frankly I was becoming more aggressively uninteresting every second. So we parted ways, mostly their choice.

I put on my headphones and started to walk home. The bottom may be falling out of the economy but you'd never guess it from walking through NYC at night. Packed bars, people spilling out onto the street smoking. Traffic all jammed up at 3 am. Horns and loudmouths filling in any silent moment that might try to slip in. Packs of douchebags in pressed shirts, looking to pick up girls so they can brag about it to their bros the next day. Arty kids passing judgment on them. And married dudes walking home from the bar bopping their heads to their favorite songs from 1973.

I walked up Bowery and made a right onto maybe 3rd street. Up ahead something caught my eye. It was a young couple, grinding like crazy against a building. What fun! At first I thought they were actually...you know...doing it. They were totally mashing their parts together in a crazy exaggerated thrusty-dance. I think the words "They're fucking!" actually rolled across my mind.

As I got closer I noticed that they were clothed, which both relieved and disappointed me. I would call it a building-aided vertical dry hump al fresco, if I was keeping score. As I got closer still I noticed that the guy was sort of burying his face in the woman's neck/cleavage area, and the woman was leaning back and apparently enjoying whatever he was doing. Then I looked again...the woman was actually talking on her cell phone!

Wow.

I got concerned for a minute. What if she was in trouble? I didn't want to be part of a 2008 Kitty Genovese moment, so I turned off my music to listen for sounds of distress and/or ecstasy. No sounds I could make out at all. Definitely none to get worried about.

But I couldn't help wondering: who was she calling? Was she listening to work voicemails? Calling an ex to taunt him with the live play by play of her latest hookup? Looking to recruit a third? Naively trying to pre-order Mets playoff tickets? Calling Ghostbusters? Making a spa appointment for Sunday?

And did her paramour care that all his best moves were only enough to consume a fraction of her attention? He didn't seem to.

I like to think I would.