Reborn (aka BTinLC, Mitch, KKBB, and the 2007/2008 NBA Season)

Faithful readers of this hallowed site -- aka Constant Retards -- may remember that I had planned to pay homage* to ESPN's Bill Simmons by taking quotes from from a film (The Breakfast Club) and relating them to the upcoming 2006/2007 NBA season. (Check the archives, Bruce.) Due to unforseen, uh, circumstances, that post was not to be. And in a lot of ways it symbolized the season and playoffs which followed. Just as I'd like to erase a lot of the stuff that happened to me from early November '06 until late June '07 from my memory, so too would I like to forget about the travesty that was the 2006/2007 NBA season. Too many injuries; too much disappointment and heartbreak.

One year later, I'm back in the saddle, full of anticipation and hope. And why wouldn't I be? Thing's couldn't get any worse, right? Right!?

Therefore, I present to you, Constant Retard, my thoughts, predictions, and addictions** for the new season, inspired by quotes from Big Trouble in Little China, the late Mitch Hedberg, and the criminally underseen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Word to Kurt***, the stand-up comedy version of 2Pac, and the greatest buddy movie duo in cinematic history.



I feel pretty good. I'm not... I'm not scared at all. I feel kind of... feel kind of invincible.

To Kevin Durant. Since the summer league, sports writers have been picking the kid apart and trying to find flaws in his game (here's a hint: he's a 19-year-old rookie!), almost as though they want him to fail. It ain't gonna take long for Gotta Be KD (only Canadian b-ball fans will get that) to find his inner Jack Burton and wreck shop in the Pacific Northwest. Sure, he'll have his punching-Thunder moments, but he's got a ton of confidence (for the sake of avoiding sports redundancy, I'll skip MJ and "ice water in his veins" references/remarks); and that can't be killed by Internet sports writing hacks such as Adrian Wojnarowski, or cocaine. (Well, maybe the latter.)

You know what Jack Burton always says... what the hell?

To the Miami Heat and Pat Riley. How do you follow up one of the worst post-championship seasons in basketball history? Answer: lose three key players to free agency (Jason Kapono, James Posey, and Eddie Jones), fail to sign a point guard -- any one from Milwaukee will do --, and trade 'Toine (the sore in my mouth that bugs me but which I love to prod with my tongue****) for Mark Fucking Blount and Ricky Davis. Hey, I have high hopes for the upcoming season as a whole; the Miami Heat in particular? Not so much.

But you know what Eoin Forbes always says...what the hell?

Everybody relax, I'm here.

To Kobe Bryant, Shawn Marion, and Andrei Kirilenko. Notice how I didn't address which teams.

Would you just stop rubbing your body up against mine, because I can't concentrate when you do that.

Retroactively, to John Amaechi and everyone he ever played with. In basketball.

Jack Burton: Great. Walls are probably three feet thick, welded shut from the outside, and covered with brick by now!
Wang Chi: Don't give up, Jack!
Jack Burton: OK, I won't, Wang! Let's just CHEW our way out of here.

To the Eastern Conference, aka the C-League. There are so many great stories rising from the Yeast: Boston's revival, the rise of the Bulls...um, the return of Gilbert Arenas and Dwyane Wade***** from injuries? Tell you what, as a lifelong Eastern Conference supporter, there's (Omar) little to look forward to, and all this spinning is making me dizzy.

So instead let's take a moment to ponder a very pertinent question; namely, which is the greatest John Carpenter film: Big Trouble in Little China, Halloween, or The Thing? (If you answer "Ghosts of Mars" I will disown you...from something.)

I love BTinLC like I love my dick size, but, really, it's no match against two of the greatest horror films ever made. More quotable, yes. A better movie, no.

Halloween is the greatest slasher film ever made******. The Thing is both explicit and subdued -- if that makes any sense -- in its narrative and cinematography (no mean feat). Halloween is, at times, under and over-acted, The Thing a clinic on understated tension. Both have put past and present girlfriends of mine to sleep, which has biased me that good-looking women can't grasp terrific films in which, A) female characters are hunted down and killed by unstoppable maniacs, and B), no females star. (There's something about strangulation and Wilford Brimley that lulls them to sleep, apparently.) The Thing has great music by the inimitable Ennio Morricone; Halloween has John Carpenter composing the most haunting score in film history. The Thing has Kurt Russell (Psychedelic Kimchi like a motherfuck); Halloween has Jamie Lee Curtis, who I'm still not convinced isn't a dude.

Despite its flaws, I'm picking Halloween in this showdown. Too bad the NBA Finals won't be as evenly matched.

When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, looks you crooked in the eye and asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail."

To Steve Nash. It's now or never, baby.

All I know is that this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of a goddamn alley while his buddies are flying around on wires cutting everybody to shreds while he just STANDS there waiting for me to drive my truck straight through him with LIGHT coming out of his mouth!

And to the Phoenix Suns: you have Nash, Ill Mare, Matrix, Barbosa, Diaw, Bell (not Stringer), the ghost of Grant Hill, and the greatest NBA coach who looks like he should be coaching hockey. Still, you might need a six-demon bag to topple the Spurs.

Jack Burton: And go off and rule the universe from beyond the grave...
Lo Pan: Indeed
Jack Burton: Or check into a psycho ward, which ever comes first, huh?

To Ron Artest, Stephon Marbury, and Allen Iverson. But for different reasons.

I'm gonna tell you about my truck, and I DON'T wanna hear "act of God"!

To Greg Oden. It's a shame we won't be able to see him play this year, because, at 37, he doesn't have much left. (Thank you, ladies and germs. I'll be here all night. Try the sea bass.)



An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.

To the New York Knicks, who, for as long as I've been alive, have always been stairs, never an escalator.

Dogs are forever in the push up postion.

To the Phillidelphia 76ers. When your greatest sports redemption of the past, I dunno, three decades is the film Rocky Balboa, you start to look at sports not with hope, but with the rationale of a prisoner getting his 25-to-life sentence reduced by a few years. Mr. Brightside: talk to a Boston Red Sox fan and he'll tell you that, unless you die first, it's worth the wait. Then you can punch him in the mouth for being a smug asshole.

I can whistle with my fingers, especially if I have a whistle.

To Doc Rivers. You win coach of the year and I will eat my hat. And if I don't own a hat at the time, I'll steal one from a drunken homeless guy.

I had a stick of CareFree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.

To Tracy McGrady. Get over the hump, can you, son? Even though Derrick Fisher's return in the Warriors/Jazz series in last season's 'offs made me shed a few tears of Dead Poet's Society*******, THERE IS NO CRYING IN BASKETBALL. Don't be a tragic loser, be a tragic winner. Even Tony Robbins has gigantism.



Perry: My $2000 ceramic Vektor my mother got me as a special gift. You threw in the lake next to the car. What happens when they drag the lake? You think they'll find my pistol. Jesus. Look up "idiot" in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?
Harry: A picture of me?
Perry: No! The definition of the word idiot, which you fucking are!

I love George Karl like I love my curly fries, but cat daddy is old school like Busy B and Where's the Beef? He should have been fired a hundred times in the past year for failing to make the Nuggets championship contenders. Look, Karl can coach the fuck out of a game, but he can't adapt to his players and treats them as though they're robots. AND he'd rather put himself in the limelight -- for all the wrong reasons -- over his players, like a has-been director taking credit and throwing his HOF stars under a bus for the movies he made over 30 years ago. (Word to Francis Ford.)

George Karl is a good coach for bad teams. George Karl is a bad coach for good teams. George Karl is Sean Penn in I Am Sam. George Karl is the cure for herpes and the cause of cancer.

Look up "paradox" in the dictionary. You know what you'll find? The definition of paradox, which George Karl fucking is.

This isn't good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker.

To Melo and AI. Part of me -- the part that was amputated but which suffers from Phantom Limb Syndrome -- doesn't want them to co-exist. (Word to Adrian Wojnarowski.) Because IT WOULD SHAKE THE PILLARS OF HEAVEN to witness those two flex game, kinda like the black basketball version of Lennon and McCartney; and I'm just not ready for that. However, I never would have belived that a buddy picture directed by the dude who wrote Lethal Weapon would turn out to be the genre's version of Illmatic, either, so color me surprised.

While you're here (and, really, where else would you be?), a plea:

I've never asked you to donate blood, dollars, organs, or the head of Alfredo Garcia; but right now I'm asking you to donate time. If you haven't seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, please do so now. I'm asking in my most urgently-meek Sally Struthers voice. (The same one I used on K-Hot when I told him he'd better watch The Departed before I die.) For I can no longer stand quoting such an amazing film while friends and acquaintances stare back perplexed, as though I'm reciting the periodic table in Latin, backwards. In short, watch KKBB and I'll name my second born after you. Unless your name is Pilot Inspektor.

Don't worry, I saw Lord of the Rings. I'm not going to end this 17 times.

Me neither. Oops.

I'm for Genaro's, but then, what do I know? I'm a bear. I suck the heads off of fish.

To Sam Mitchell, the luckiest coach alive. You should write a book. Call it "Cats Always Land on Their Feet: How I half-assed my way through 3 seasons as an NBA Coach, won Coach of the Year honors, and perfected the lost art of wearing oversized suits." You can ask Doc Rivers to write the introduction.

Harry: A talking monkey?
Perry: Talking monkey, yeah, yeah. Came here from the future, ugly sucker, only says "ficus".

And so I dub thee, 2007/2008 NBA season, Ficus. Stand tall, don't get chopped down or allow dogs to pee on you, and grow another ring...even if it's for the San Antonio Spurs.




* aka rip off

** word to commas

*** Write that on my epitaph!

**** Tell your moms I said hi.

***** I hear he's getting divorced. Spooky.

****** and Rob Zombie's "re-imagining" of it was a sin akin to me rewriting the bible to to further my own purpose (which would NEVER happen).

******* aka that feeling you get when you're happy and sad at the same time. There must be a French word for it.