Day 26: The Pussycat Dolls of Basketball

(Those Euro 2012 previews I promised? FUCK 'EM - go read these instead. Mr. Zonal Marking has forgotten more about football than I will ever know. Now, on to more pressing matters...)

The Miami Heat are not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, but one game away from playoff elimination. 

Let's bask in the schadenfreude for a bit. 

Ready to go on? Hold on just one more second . . .

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE HEAT FUCKING SUCK. MAYBE IT WAS ALL KIND OF PREDICTABLE. I MEAN BASKETBALL THIS IS A TEAM SPORT RIGHT YOU NEED TO HAVE FIVE BODIES ON THE COURT AND THREE CAN BE REALLY FUCKING AWESOME BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE FOURTH AND FIFTH ARE WARM CORPSES KNOWN AS "SHANE BATTIER" AND "JUWAN HOWARD." 

TOO BAD THE TEAM IS IN THE HANDS OF A VAGUELY ASIAN VIDEO EDITOR WHO KNOWS WAY MORE ABOUT iMOVIE THAN DEFENDING THE PICK AND ROLL. YOU CAN HAVE THREE GREAT PLAYERS AVAILABLE BUT NO ONE OF THEM GOT A BOOBOO ON HIS TUMMY A FEW WEEKS AGO LET'S NOT CAPITULATE TO HIS DEMANDS TO PLAY AND LEAVE HIM ON THE BENCH THE WHOLE FOURTH QUARTER. 48 MORE MINUTES TILL YOU BETTER LEARN TO SURF MIAMI CRAIGSLIST COACH SPO.

AND REALLY, THE MIAMI HEAT? DAVID STERN, MASTER CONSPIRATOR, YOU COULDN'T FIND A WAY TO BRING THESE ONCE-IN-A-GENERATION TALENTS TO A CITY THAT ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT BASKETBALL? GAMES IN MIAMI ARE LIKE WEIRD KKK RALLIES. JUST 20,000 OLD CAUCASIANS ALL GATHERED CLOSE TOGETHER AND DRESSED IN WHITE TO REACT WITH INDIFFERENCE TO THE AMAZING ATHLETIC FEATS OF NINE SUPREMELY TALENTED AFRICAN AMERICANS AND MIKE MILLER. THE WEIRD THING IS YOUR COLOR SCHEME DOESN'T EVEN INCLUDE WHITE, BUT IT DOES HAVE A BUNCH OF PRIMARY COLORS, JUST LIKE EVERY UNCREATIVE AFRICAN NATION EVER. THE ONLY REASON YOU DON'T BELONG ON THE SAME COURT AS THE CELTICS IS BECAUSE YOUR UNIFORM IS SO UGLY.

REALLY YOU'RE JUST THE PUSSYCAT DOLLS OF BASKETBALL. NICOLE SCHERZINGER/LEBRON JAMES, THEY'RE OK, SUPPORTING CAST, MEH. A REALLY HOT SOLO ARTIST AND FIVE UNTALENTED AND AVERAGE LOOKING WHITE GIRLS A SUPERGROUP DOES NOT MAKE, AND NEITHER DOES LEBRON JAMES AND DWYANE WADE AND CHRIS BOSH AND FUCKING NORRIS COLE AND JOEL ANTHONY. 

BUT AT LEAST ALL THE MEDIOCRE TALENT OF PCD CAME TOGETHER FOR ONE SUBLIME MOMENT. THE HEAT CAN ONLY WISH TO PRODUCE SUCH A PERFECT ARTISTIC EMBODIMENT OF HUMANITY'S ETERNAL JEALOUSY OF HOT GIRLS. 

SMH, MIAMI HEAT. AS MUCH AS I HATE YOU, I KIND OF HOPE YOU WIN JUST SO ESPN CAN SHUT UP ABOUT YOU. HAHAHAHAHAHA NO, I TAKE THAT BACK, I HOPE YOU LOSE ON THURSDAY AND EVERY GAME NEXT SEASON AND GET BANISHED TO A REUNION TOUR IN CLEVELAND. I DON'T WISH THAT TYPE OF PUNISHMENT ON MANY, BUT IF ANYONE EVER DESERVED THAT, IT'S YOU LOSERS. GO FUCK YOURSELVES. 

(This may all seem a bit harsh, Miami, but you should know this is my favorite song. #GoFINS)

Day 11: Evacuate the Dancefloor

The weirdest thing about Highland is its obsession with dance. The obsession isn't the weird part because every small town is obsessed with something: something they're good at, something to form an identity around, something to make you proud of the otherwise you live, or more likely to temporarily forget the otherwise shitty place you live.

But dance. Fucking dance. Dance in all its dark and pathetic forms. Pom dance, jazz dance, hip-hop dance, and worst of all lyrical dance, which basically involves looking really emotional while rolling around on a dirty floor. Apparently we excel at all of these. 

You wish parents could steer their kids to more worthwhile pursuits, like chess maybe, or Model UN. But no. I guess dance provides the greatest vicarious thrill.

Women are sad to start out with. You live in Highland, or you watch Dance Moms (or the new spinoff Dance Moms: Miami!) and you see that age only makes things worse. I do all three of these things. (This is why misogyny is one of my major problems.)

But now we're making our young males dance. Out of the 100 or so dancers at my sister's recital on Saturday, 12 were male. We have a male dance team at the high school. We also have a winless football team. They really fucking suck. A fucking 0-9 football team and 10 potential future star quarterbacks are thrusting their groins and tap-dancing to Luke Bryan dance remixes*. But he has a dick! And he's dancing! What bravery and courage! And all for art!, if that's what you call aimless movement to Lil Jon's "Get Low."

I don't mind dance, besides feeling like a pedophile while watching it and worrying about the actual pedophiles that certainly lurk in the audience. I cringe at the mustachioed fathers in the crowd yelling "Do your thang girls!" And simultaneously I realize this is my future, a lifetime of yelling at my progeny, wanting them to do all I never could, wanting to relive my own athletic glory days**, wanting to escape the hopelessness and desperation that seem to come once you reach a certain age. 

Let us all hope I live this out on football fields instead of packed auditoriums.

*Really. They souped up the beat to "Rain is a Good Thing" and had this 10-year-old guy do a tap routine to it. When I was 10 I spent most of my time unleashing predatory dinosaurs on my guests in Zoo Tycoon. Any objective psychoanalyst will tell you my childhood was better and, as a consequence, my adulthood will be way more awesome.

**If you consider golf a sport, which you shouldn't. Pussy shit, but I could actually play pretty good and all. My kid will be much more manly and athletically talented. I will not let him take the easy way out. IT. WILL. BE. FOOTBALL. (Or chess. Or Model UN. Or theater. Or anything besides dance or golf, because really, golfers are douchebags, and dance is just fucking awful. Do anything other than those things and I'll luv u 4evr, unborn son!)