Kyrie Irving's Entitlement

Dear Kyrie Irving,

Please tell me how you would feel if a prominent white basketball player linked a movie that was hostile to Blacks to his various social media accounts.

My guess is you'd be pounding on Adam Silver's door demanding the player in question be removed from the NBA. You'd be crying to every TV camera in sight about the relentless slandering of Blacks.

Finally, you'd be filling any and all available social media space with accusations that the NBA is a racist enterprise and needs to be held accountable.

But that didn't happen, did it?

You linked a movie damaging to Jews to your accounts and because you are an obnoxiously-paid, high-profile athlete, the rest of us are supposed to either forgive, excuse or (gulp) understand.

Got it. 

That go for Kanye, too?

Sincerely,

La Piazza Gancio

 

Hit and Run

Okay, I admit it. My trip south last month wasn't exactly the Shackleton Expedition to Antarctica, was it? There was some way cool stuff. But still. When the final portion of something—the ending—goes badly or is disappointing, that frequently becomes the lingering, lasting image.

The taste that remains on the tongue after the sweet has washed away.

Is it an outgrowth of that portion of us which reacts more-powerfully to negative news than positive? Is it tied in some remote way to our survival instincts? To better enable the survival of the species?

I wonder as I wander, people.

A carton of Trader Joe's Carne Asada burritos to Brooklyn Nets owner Joseph Tsai for calling out his point guard, Kyrie Irving.

I mean, kudos to Kyrie for landing in a profession where he can say and do pretty much whatever he wants—for as long as he can dribble and shoot a basketball, anyway. And for the generational wealth he's accruing.

Nice.

But to put it mildly, Kyrie is a flake. Selfish. And a knee-jerk contrarian. And yes, he gets to do that. Just like I do. Or you. I get it. But sabotaging the efforts of your teammates and the man who is paying you prodigious sums of money because you're a self-appointed medical expert and don't “believe” in vaccines?

That is messed up.

You want to make socio-political statements? Fine. But do it when you're the only one suffering the consequences. Do it on your time—not the company's.

You conceivably cost the Nets and their fans a title. How do you feel about that? Do you feel anything at all? Your behavior is the equivalent of a player ignoring two open teammates as he forces a three-on-one in the paint.

Please don't ever play for Chicago, okay?

On August 9, 2020 James Massey got on Facebook and posted this: ATTENTION ATTENTION LOTTING (sic) START AT 12am. DOWNTOWN AREA AND UP NORTH AREA ONLY BRING YA TOOLS SKI MASK AND GLOVES.

Falls a little short of “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” but there you go. Exploiting the simmering social unrest in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, the would-be entrepreneur orchestrated a mass smash-and-grab on social media that proved catastrophic for the city.

Lost in the shattered glass and the police lights and the burglar alarms was the irony: it was a physical manifestation of what the Republican-enabled one-percent have been doing to the country for years.

Not so ironic is that only one group faces consequences.

And while Massey's 15-month sentence for inciting that rioting in Chicago is more than Donald Trump will ever see for January 6th, I still have to feel it falls a little short. Keep in mind that with time off for good behavior, that gets halved.

Not sure how hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage and irreparable damage to the city translates to fifteen-months, but what do I know?

What I do know is that twenty-one months after the looting, the city still hasn't healed.

Ah. The world is such an imperfect place.

Sigh.

 

Pizza Truths

To paraphrase the late Vince Lombardi, pizza isn't life or death. It's bigger than that. And yet, if our so-called president had written The Art of the Pizza instead of The Art of the Deal, he likely would not be our so-called president and as such would be making a tangible contribution to society at large.

Pizza is a lifestyle choice. On a table, it practically qualifies as interior decoration. If I were a realtor, I'd have a succession of pizzas baking during an open house. That sucker (the house—not the pizza) would be gone in minutes! (Although the pizzas would disappear like this year's NU Wildcats fighting for a NCAA tournament bid.)

Pizza is a liar. Its circular shape suggests infinity, something that goes on forever. But as any sauce-smeared pizzaholic can tell you, pizza can and does end.

Dysfunctional people are familiar with something called leftover pizza. Of course, I know nothing of this. Leftover pizza? Isn't that an oxymoron? Leftover pizza is an enigma wrapped in silver foil. Or thoughtlessly left in its cardboard box to wither in the cold, dark recesses of a refrigerator.

Pizza is a big, giant anti-depressant you can share with your friends, without the unintended side-effects or social stigma. I should caution you, however, that like any pharmaceutical, pizza may be habit-forming. 

Best of all, pizza doesn't preclude you from operating heavy machinery.

Like vampires, pizza is ageless. Unlike vampires, a pizza will not suck every last drop of blood from your person. Psychologists attribute vampire's antisocial behavior to an eternity spent in a pizzaless void.

Pizza is ancient, following closely on the discoveries of bread and fire and cheese. Had the Romans not held tomatoes in such misguided contempt and instead used them to embellish pizza, their empire would have lasted longer.

About the same time Persian soldiers were baking early prototypes of pizza on their government-issue shields, the Greek mathematician Pythagoras was theorizing that the Earth was, indeed, round.

Which brings me to the fact that pizza is flat. It is also round, which must be tremendously confounding to the world's flat Earth societies. This is probably the number-one reason they so rarely order it for their banquets.

While it has yet to be proven you can sail off the edge of the Earth, a toy boat can sail off the edge of a pizza.

Beware, Kyrie Irving.