Fear and Loathing in South Beach

Warmups: I'm listening to The Foo Fighters 'Come Back,' drinking a can of Welch's Sparkling Strawberry (but only by coincidence), and smoking a Dunhill Light. I'm also wearing a DARE T-Shirt, and I'm not trying to be ironic. I feel you need to know these things.

1st Quarter: To paraphrase Free Darko's Bethlehem Shoals, it's been a weird year for me and the Miami Heat. The reg seaze began almost simultaneously with some pretty weird shit in my life, and while I tried to stick it out on some basketball IS life shit, I couldn't maintain the pace like George Wendt in a potato sack race. I tried to balance things, but eventually it became too much for me. I know! Me!

I had to put b-ball on the back burner. I had to put a LOT of things on the back burner.

2nd Quarter: Still not ready to get into the ongoing (winding down) aforementioned circus of my life*, and perhaps I never will, but as November rolled into December, and December rolled into the new year, I couldn't help but notice that the Heat's season was eerily playing out in a similar fashion to my own. And if it weren't for the fact that I almost singlehandedly willed the Heat -- with a little help from pickled chili peppers and some kid named Dwyane Wade; perhaps you've heard of him -- to an NBA title last summer, I'd chalk it up to coincidence. But I can't do that. The Heat and I have a symbiotic relationship. If I were to tell you what happened to me on the day Dwyane went down, you'd be positively stunned.

Anyway, metaphyisical silliness aside, the Heat's season became a metaphor for The Life of Spark. Or perhaps it was vice-versa. Regardless, I didn't have a whole lotta faith to spread; I gave up on the season. Shit, I didn't see a game for like 2 months, the Heat were floundering, Melo was on lock, Yao was taking ESL at the Mayo Clinic, Wade was in therapy, learning to jack off with his left, I don't even wanna mention What Timmy Hardaway Said, and Ziggy was in prison for shooting up an electronics store. I told you that fucking synthetic ball was cursed. Like the old dude warning camp counsellors to steer clear of Crystal Lake, I told y'all.

Halftime: Kobe got shot at his record release party...Don Nelson's new favoritest song is 'Picture Me Rollin'. I'ma put that lil factoid up on his Wikipedia page**...On some Halloween II shit, I came face to face once more with a monster: the vespa*** mandarinia...The Raps survived a scare, only because the NJay-Zs shot just as poorly as they did (btw, Sam Mitchell CotY? Surreal. Fuck, I really wanted Jeff Van Diet Coke or Rick Carlisle coaching the Raps soon. Not gonna happen)...Screw Wikipedia, and here's why: I recently edited Tayshaun Prince's page to add that he enjoys ("fucking loves" is the exact term I used, iirc) Sun Chips, and that shit was deleted. He so fucking does love Sun Chips! My brother saw him in Philly, coming off the team bus, munching on a bag, and when Tay stopped to signature sink ink, my bro asked, "Tay, you like cheddar harvest or sour cream n' onion better?" Prince replied, "Doesn't matter, yo. I'd eat these shits even if they were whole fucking wheat, seven grain. Rip loves 'em, too. They're all we eat! We keep soliciting Frito Lay to let us endorse their wholsome snackfood, but they never call us back. I guess they think we don't fit the profile of your typical Sun Chips eater, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom****." So fuck Wikipedia. They can't handle the Paul Pierce...

3rd Quarter: Then, a funny thing happened on the way to the lottery. The Heat went on a 9-game win streak (mostly to fish fodder, truth be told), and, suddenly, the sun began to shine again on Planet Spark. For a minute, I was like MC Hammer in the Pumps N A Bump video (arrrrgh!). But it was all just a dream. Riles's magic fucking card pit wasn't gonna salvage a trainwreck of a year. Now we're down 0-2 to a hungry Bulls squad (the Alkaholiks got rhymes that'll make ya say "Deng!"), and things aren't looking very promising. So, once again, I gotta grab my piece...

4th Quarter: I got no chili peppers in the fridge; not gonna evoke the hallowed words of Andy Defresne, not gonna threaten to be an Indian giver towards my born-again love for 'Toine, not gonna do a lot of things. My mind is St. elsewhere: I have not the energy nor the passion to give a rally cry. I wish I did. There is still a chance to turn things around, though. There's always a silver lining. If the Heat's season REALLY mirrors mine, it's gonna be irie for your 2005-2006 NBA Champions.

Overtime: Luke Walton looks eerily like the love child of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. It's not even funny. Similarly, Jason Kapono (I call him Kapodonna; where's the love?) looks like Bill Simmons.




* Look into semantics man, look into 'em closely.

** Nothing, however, can beat this for sheer audacity (not my work; peep the last 3 paragraphs; the first two might be true; the last is on some Dwight "Casual's Fear Itself is the best Hip-Hop album of all time" shit and then some): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_D

*** If I ever have another girl, I'm so naming her Vespa.

**** "Then he sighed forlornly" is what I was told.