This Book Has Balls Page 10

  If you have never done cross-fit, they have lumberjack ropes hanging from the gym ceiling. These are ropes people use for towing boats and holding barges on docks. This is the shit they used before cables were invented and they still had pirates. These shits were on another level of thick. I finally learned to climb the fucking rope sixteen feet up to the ceiling and ring a bell. It was a great feeling, a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of breaking through to the other side. You know what it also felt like? It felt like I had been tricked and the teacher wanted me dead. What they don’t teach you in ropes class is how to come down from the ceiling on a giant deadly rope. The Indian burns I got on my legs on the way down and the bleeding hands that were ripping apart had me crying on the inside like a fucking circus acrobat who fell and tried to act fine about it. I was blank-faced and bleeding out.

  What the fuck is functional about being able to climb a rope? They have elevators and stairs and escalators now. Yeah, it’s cool and was impressive to Wife-Wife, but you know what else was impressive? My eating eleven slices of Patsy’s Pizza the night Larry Johnson hit that four-point play versus the Indiana Pacers in ’99. My homeboys couldn’t fucking believe what they were seeing. They still talk about me pulling that off without barfing. I had an iron stomach. You know what else is impressive? Sitting happily for seven hours straight during playoff football in one sports bar trying all their different flavors of wings. Why isn’t that as impressive? Fuck all this extra hard-core training for events that don’t happen in life. Flip a tire, climb a rope, jump up on a box, dangle from the monkey bars? Why don’t we do a real functional workout? Why don’t I just open and close the car door fifty times? Why don’t I pick up a twenty-pound bag of ice forty times to be ready for when the fellas come over to watch games? Why don’t I work out my wrists on the barbecue on and off switch in case that day comes? Fuck the nonfunctional functional workout.

  I called Chuck the Trainer after the bleeding rope episode and told him I was retiring from cross-fit. He called me a pussy. I told Chuck to take his fucking thirty-five-pound kettle bells and jump into the ocean and let me know how functional that feels, ya prick-lipped function fuck.

  Bae was pissed, but luckily, she started to take hot yoga and was thinking about becoming a certified yoga teacher. I was all for it. I wanted to support her, and this was something I could do. No blood, no gloves, no hate. Plus, yoga is something I’ve practiced over the years and actually like. I’m surprisingly good at it, too. I have a naturally perfect downward dog pose. No bullshit. It’s one of those weird things. I could always touch my toes.

  Growing up, I was never the best shooter, rebounder, or defensive player, but I was always the best stretcher. Real talk. At Erasmus Hall High School, Coach Bunyon would have me lead the team in pre-practice warm-ups and say wild shit like “Watch Rapaport stretch; he’s as flexible as a Honduran hooker on a Sunday.” The whole team was confused by Mr. Bunyon’s analogies, but I was the best at something, and stretching was it.

  I willingly stretch every day, and I’ll do it anyplace and any moment I’m feeling a tweak, some tightness, or emotionally unstable. When my kids were eleven and nine, they named me the Street Stretcher because when we would walk around NYC, I would stop on a dime and throw my leg on top of a mailbox to get a nice deep full-leg stretch in. They would be humiliated yet impressed that I could slap my leg on top of a mailbox and go deep midday. I was totally down with my lady going to hot yoga, and I wanted in on the action. This was something I could do.

  So, we started going four to five times a week. I loved it. They played dope music in the fifty-minute classes, and I was starting to really get in shape and enjoy myself. Things were going well on all levels. I was long, I was lean, I was limber. My general wingspan was getting wider, and I was breathing deeper. I was even noticing weird shit like when I waved to people, my fingers were more spread out. The yoga was working. My anger spurts were diminishing, and my girl was shocked at how calm I was in restaurants, public spaces, and even on the phone, where I was known to lose it. And then things started to go south.

  * * *

  One day after an extremely hard, sweaty, near-death heat class, I got up to walk out like I usually did, and there were fucking sweat puddles on the floor all over the place like a goddamn rainstorm had happened in the class. I don’t do well with other people’s sweat in general, but you put buckets of ass and back sweat around the room, and I’m going to lose it. I was hopping around the class like a freakin’ lily pad frog looking to get around the water. Everyone in the class was all calm and relaxed and on that “everything is one and everything is part of the same universe and we’re all just molecules connected” shit, and I’m thinking, I’m not stepping in homeboy’s back-to-ass sweat, and if I do, I’ll never do yoga again. The entire purpose was backfiring on me. I didn’t want to go back, but of course, Wifey told me I was being a germaphobe and it was so good for me that I had to go back. So, of course, I did. And the shit was fucked up again.

  I was in downward dog and the teacher came over and pulled some prison shit on me. He held my hips and started whispering some shit in my ear about me being too tight and that I needed to let my childhood go and drop the pain in my soul. The motherfucker had me in a hip grip with a twist of mind control thrown in. Believe me, I know some of these yoga fucks are on some weird cult control moves. But that’s not my point here. This was a man with both hands on me, telling me to let go of all my shit, and he was going to be there for me when it was all over. I didn’t like it, I didn’t feel right about it, and I left there with a fucking sliver of manhood and swore I wasn’t going back. Of course, my lady wasn’t having it, and I was back two weeks later for what would be my last class with other people. But this was not my fault either.

  The class was going okay, and I was breathing deeply, and my girl was breathing near me and we were all good on a Saturday afternoon, and then Fuckface Von Stretcherberg tells the class that we need to go deep and breathe from our stomachs and let it all go. Well, guess what, kids? When I breathe deep and exhale, sounds are made, and they ain’t fucking silent. That’s right. I was taught as a young athlete and karate student during my four weeks of karate that when you exhale, you blow it out, and with that blow sometimes comes a sound or a grunt. Well, when I started exhaling, it was coming out somewhere between a “ha” and “ohhhh,” and it was purely natural. I wasn’t doing it for attention; it’s just the way my lungs were kicking out my breath. I felt great, I felt organic, and I felt like it was working. Well, here comes the teacher and tells me, “Michael, I’m sorry, you’re disturbing the class.” He’s telling me this while I’m half upside down and feeling good about myself. I was pissed. This is how I breathe; you want to tell me to go deep and bring it up and exhale, well, this is what you get, my friend. That was it for me. When I got home, my girl told me I actually was disruptive and people were making faces at her since they knew she was with me. Well, guess what, yogis? Have at it. I’m going solo on that ass. I’m done with cultish classes and judgmental techniques, and I now do private yoga all by myself. I make all the loud noises I want, and I don’t have to skip over a puddle, and there’s no teacher to have his way with me midway through class. Namaste, Bish’es!!!!

  Even When We Suck, New York City Is Still the Mecca

  New York City is the mecca of basketball, and Madison Square Garden is its crown jewel. I know a lot of you Rapaport pundits from all corners of the world are going to challenge me on this fact, and that’s fine. I know you’ll tout your city and brag about its great marquees. I know Detroit produced some of the greatest players to ever play the game at the college and pro levels, and you played at the Palace of “Where the Hell Is” Auburn Hills, and, yeah, I know Flint, Michigan, had its heyday when Glen Rice and Jeff Grayer looked like pros in high school. Yes, everyone knows Chicago churned out tons of legends from the parks and the public school system, and people love the United Center and treat it like sacred ground. I’ve heard i
t all before. But nothing, nothing can touch New York City, and no building can ever touch the World’s Most Famous Arena.

  The average Rapaport critic (and there are legions of them) will say, “Mike Rap, stop it with the NYC, Madison Square Garden nonsense. The Knicks haven’t won shit since 1973, St. John’s hasn’t been mentionable since Chris Mullin had floppy red hair, and NYC doesn’t have any homegrown stars in the NBA.” I know all of that. It means nothing. Nada. Zilch.

  You can’t rewrite history, people. Before the NBA was the big business we know it as today, there was only college basketball to pay attention to, and all the big games and major tournaments happened in New York at Madison Square Garden. Look, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend it doesn’t hurt that the Knicks haven’t won jack bone since I was three years old. I was actually in a double-legged diaper cast after breaking my leg in the spring of ’73 when the Knicks won their last championship. You know how humiliating it was for me to hobble around New York City in a double-legged diaper cast? It fucking sucked.

  I was jumping on the bed, fell, and broke my femur. Thank God medical technology has improved, because this casting device was not cool. I didn’t even get to go to the parade.

  Not winning since ’73 is shameful. It hurts bad. I feel it every day when I wake up and look at the posters of Earl “the Pearl” Monroe I still have hanging on my wall even though I’m pushing fifty. It also hurts that New York City doesn’t produce the born-and-bred talent that it used to and isn’t sending kids to the NCAA or the NBA like we were once known for. The shit is emotional, and it stings. But life is a big circle and things come back around, my friend. We will rise once again from the streets of New York City and take off like a rocket ship into the stratosphere. I love saying NASA shit like that. We’re already making strides. NYC’s own Kemba Walker just made his first All-Star Game in 2017 and for now might be the sole rep of the city, and that’s okay. Kemba embodies the True-Blue, Boogie-Down-Bronx, Ankle-Breaking Flavor that has influenced the world.

  These times are crippling for a guy like me who loves to talk shit and has been perfecting the art since I was thrown out of an NYC public school for it. But knowing the Garden’s history and knowing that we’re bound to come back gives me real hope, and at this point a little hope is all I’m fucking looking for.

  Before the NBA was the gigantic business it is today, with nonstop coverage, statistics filling up every space, and access to star players through social media, the Garden was the place to be. Before Charles, Kenny, and the TNT crew did their thing, people were talking about the Garden as if it was the star. When college hoops was at its height and we were locked in watching NCAA Basketball at its peak, MSG was the epicenter. Please don’t make me go all the way back to sold-out Garden appearances by P. T. Barnum and my dude Pickles the Clown to make my point. I think you get it: the Old Garden on Eighth and Fiftieth was the spot, and if you played there, the eyes of the world were watching you. The NBA doesn’t get big without New York winning. Period.

  I’m no history major, but let me lay it out for you. From ’57 through ’69, the Boston Celtics won every NBA championship except one. I’m sure that was great for Boston Celtics fans, and it gave some twisted hope even the fans of the Lakers, who lost in the Finals seven times during that period. Unfortunately, the rest of the country didn’t give a shit about it. The fact is, the NBA wasn’t considered a mainstream attraction until the New York Knicks started winning games, and that, my friends and angry pundits, happened with our 1969–70 Knicks crew.

  When that 1970 championship team was organically drafted and traded to make all the pieces fit, they represented NYC and everything about it. Willis Reed, the captain, was only a second-round pick but brought a toughness and work ethic that the city appreciated when he beat up the entire Lakers team in a bench-clearing brawl in 1966. If you have never seen the footage, look it up on YouTube. He beat up the whole team by himself. New Yorkers recognized we had somebody special going to war for us.

  Bill Bradley was a star like no other when he got to the Knicks. Women were showing up to the games just to see Dollar Bill on the free-throw line. The hype was nothing like the league had ever seen. He was like a one-man boy band. The closest thing to compare it to was Linsanity. Remember that shit? Fucking Linsanity was some alien-landing shit. Bill Bradley represented that upper-class white Fifth Avenue alien that rounded out our gritty pack of wolves.

  The biggest star turned out to be Walt Frazier. Clyde was the first of his kind in pro sports. Every athlete in every sport now comes into the league having already branded themselves and stockpiled endorsements. Walt Frazier and the Clyde image were groundbreaking. He was the first professional athlete to have a sneaker named after him. He was the first to become a mainstream, fully marketable black athlete. That happened because the real-life Mad Men of Madison Avenue were sitting courtside at Knick games watching Frazier emerge, and then they had something special. Clyde was the coolest guy in sports, and maybe the coolest guy to walk the streets of the city. No other player was rockin’ canary gold with zebra patterns and a pimped-out brim hat pregame. He played the role of style god on and off the court. They called him Clyde because of the wide-brim Bonnie and Clyde hat that legendary Stick Man Warren Beatty made famous.

  We got Dave DeBusschere in the trade from Detroit, and he came in looking like a blue-collar workhorse straight off 8 Mile Road. The City loved him for it. The great Dick Barnett, Cazzie Russell, and the openly Hippie Dippie Smoke-It-If-You-Got-It Phil Jackson were the perfect fit for an NYC-character-driven team. Red Holzman was a tough, street-ball-playing New York City Jew who coached like the city of Brooklyn itself was running through his veins.

  That team looked like they played. Every player represented an aspect of New York. They repped the big dreams and harsh realities. The slogan “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” was never more apparent than in the lineup and work ethic of the 1970 Knicks. And when they started winning games, it was Madison Square Garden that became the real Broadway show. Fuck Hamilton. Nothing was as exciting in 1970 as the Knicks in the Garden.

  Celebrities showed up every night: Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Frank Sinatra, and everyone in between was there. Celebrities didn’t go to hoop games before that 1970 championship team. Even the great Laker teams in Los Angeles didn’t get the Triple-A-list stars the Knicks got during the 1969–70 season.

  The entertainment value of the entire league shot up when the Knicks took the championship. It happened right before our eyes and in dramatic fashion. When a young Marv Albert said, “Here comes Willis, here comes Willis,” as the limping Knicks captain made his way onto the Garden floor and led the Knicks in crushing the Lakers, it was written in stone. The Lakers’ original Big 3 of Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry “the Logo” West had their plans ruined in the Brand-New Garden. The “New Garden” gave new life to the already amazing city.

  It’s within eyeshot of the Empire State Building and a fifteen-minute walk to Central Park if you go north and to SoHo if you head south. Walk around New York, you’ll notice there’s an outdoor hoop court within about a mile radius everywhere you go in the five boroughs. Basketball is part of the architectural fabric of New York. That will never go away.

  The New Garden opened in 1969 and is the only original arena left in the NBA. Although our Knicks haven’t won the chip since ’73, NBA players, pro fighters, Miley Cyrus, and everybody else knows that when they come to the Garden, this is the same exact building where Clyde had 36 and 19 in game 7 versus the Lakers in 1970, the same roof that Ali and Frazier fought under in 1971, and the same exact seating arrangement that Sinatra performed live to in 1974.

  The Boston Garden is gone; the Staples Center is cool but will never have the mystique of the Fabulous Forum. And do I really need to mention other places like the Smoothie King Arena in New Orleans? I don’t think so. Madison Square Garden is the last remaining NBA arena with all its history intact. Th
at means everything. Like it or not, the Garden will always be the World’s Most Famous Arena, and New York City will always be the mecca.

  The Irony of Charles Oakley

  Of all the lowlights the Knicks have gone through the past few years, the Charles Oakley incident, which I watched on live TV, blew my fucking mind. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I damn sure couldn’t believe who I was seeing it happen to. I was actually embarrassed to be a New York Knicks fan that day. You don’t do Charles Oakley like that. No fucking way. They not only arrested Charles Oakley in Madison Square Garden but the way they handled it afterward was disgusting and against everything we as Knicks fans stand for. That’s our dude. They hit him with disorderly conduct and some other bullshit charges, and at the moment of this writing, James Dolan—owner of the Garden, the Knicks, and a billion dollars’ worth of other shit—still hasn’t dropped the charges. We’re talking about Charles Oakley. The same security guards and police officers who grew up in the Tri-State area watching Oakley dive all over the Garden floor for loose balls, set smashing picks, grab rebound after rebound, and protect the players who needed to be protected were now ordered to arrest him? The irony. Oakley went to war for the team he loved representing. Oak was the guy for us, the guy you need on your team. The dude who doesn’t do the talking, the dude who does the hard work, and he did it for the last relevant Knicks team you can remember. They physically escorted him to the tunnel, the same tunnel he used to lead the beloved Nineties Knicks team down before they hit the floor. Then, in some sort of bullshit show of force, they put him in a Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Jujitsu arm bar and sat him on the floor. All this was happening on national TV, while the Garden crowd cheered “Oakley, Oakley.” It was filthy.

  Arresting Charles Oakley in the Garden is like arresting the Pope at the Vatican. He means that much to Knicks fans. He is us. He’s what we represent. The hard-nosed, tough-it-out, workmanlike mentality that built New York. And you want to surround him and take him down in his house? Oakley gave us what was real about the city. The real New York shit, not the Sex and the City, fashion forward, “SoHo version with a twist of lemon” New York. I’m talking about the motherfuckers who clear your streets, who make sure your garbage gets picked up, who build those skyscrapers you’re so proud of. I’m not talking about the man-bun, coffee-shop-hipster, fuck-Brooklyn version that Lena Dunham so gladly portrays on HBO’s Girls. That ain’t New York. That’s some elitist, “take off your clothes even when you shouldn’t because you read a few books and went to a few art exhibits” bullshit. Charles Oakley is us. Oak repped the heart and soul of New York, and that’s how you want to do him? You understand what a guy like that does for your team? Does for your players? You know what it means to have protection on a team, to have that bodyguard on the squad who makes sure you don’t get taken advantage of ? Every team needs an Oakley. You think Patrick could have been Patrick without knowing Oak had his back? You think Starks didn’t get that extra confidence knowing damn well Oakley had straight goon tendencies if he needed them? And don’t tell me we already had that with Mason, because as truly bad-ass as Mason was—and we know he was—Oakley was ready to go when it was go time. He’s a necessary cog in that machine. That character is needed on every team in every sport.