DadCentric

Lakers/Celtics - It's ON

Real quick, before tipoff: Mr. Big Dubya and I, being ardent fans of the Celtics and Lakers (who will win in 5), have entered into a wager. Loser (Celtics, who will lose tonight and ultimately drop 4 more against the Lakers) buys the winner (me) a case of his hometime's finest. Quick, people - go to the comments and tell us which team (the one from L.A.) is going to win the NBA title, and why (Kobe, Pau, Fish, Lamar, deep bench, best coach of the modern NBA era).

Basketball Jones

I'm a 39-year-old father with a tough job, a mortgage, and a bad back.

These days, I tend to look longingly at anything that is still relatively current but manages to remind me of my youth. That's why I love things like the fact that (1) Duran Duran is still touring, (2) Randy Johnson is still pitching, and (3) denim shorts are back in style.

For any men around my age, watching NBA basketball over the past 20 years has been somewhat of a letdown. Nothing can compare to the classic 80's battles between Larry Bird's Celtics and Magic Johnson's Lakers. It was not only the true birth of the NBA as a mainstream televised sport, it was also the grand "heyday" that I remember.

Today, my fellow dad Danny waxed the light nostalgic over those old games and what they meant to him. He also talked about how excited he was to watch those two storied franchises go at it tonight in their first championship match-up since 1987.

It reminded me of what Chuck Klosterman wrote a few years ago:

As I have grown older, it's become clear that the Lakers-Celtics rivalry represents absolutely everything: race, religion, politics, mathematics, the reason I'm still not married, the Challenger explosion, Man vs. Beast, and everything else. There is no relationship that isn't a Lakers-Celtics relationship.

Back then, times were a little different. Being either a Celtic fan or a Laker fan said something about you. Lakers fans were Hollywood. Celtics fans were salt-of-the-earth tough guys. Today, as we've entered a time where we're less separated by our geography, all of that seems to matter much less.

Personally I can't wait to sit down tonight and watch the NBA finals. I haven't watched any of the Finals games over the past several years. And although the players may have changed, there will be a big part of me sitting on the couch and enjoying these games solely because it will take me back to my youth.

Will it take you back too?

FYI...Blogger Blowtorch had a recent interview with Klosterman over the coming series. Check it out. It's hilarious.

And No, I Don't Wear a Flag Pin on My Lapel Either

"Look, Dad!", Lucas said from the backseat. "It's Barat Omama!"

It wasn't him in the flesh, just a picture of him along with Hillary Clinton and John McCain, part of a talk radio ad displayed on the side of a bus that we were passing.

"Yep. Barack Obama is how he says it."

"Oh. We like him, right? Is he a Good Guy?" To Lucas, there are Good Guys (Indiana Jones, Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark) and Bad Guys (Megatron, Darth Vader, Tim Duncan). Ah, to be four, living in a world without gray.

"I think so. In the United States, we get to pick our president - kind of like the boss of the country - and he's the guy I'm picking."

"Oh. Who are those other two people?"

"Well, they also want to be president."

"Oh. Are they the Bad Guys?"

Yes, I thought. She's a pathological liar/megalomaniac/power addict with delusions of entitlement, and he's a mercurial half-senile warmonger who gave up any claim he once had of being a "maverick" when he stood up to be counted with Bush and his neocon puppeteers. "Nope. They just have different ideas about how to be a good president. That doesn't necessarily make them bad."

"Oh. You know who I want to be president? Optimus Prime!"

"Well, he would make a pretty good president. Think of the money we'd save - wouldn't need Air Force One, the Secret Service, and the war would be over pretty quick..."