The guys in legal tell me I can’t blame the shooting in Orlando on Harambe the gorilla, Cecil The Lion or Pat Robertson.
They say I need to write something soft and sensitive and suggested I write about the NBA finals.
I laughed and asked them if they were serious.
“Don’t you know I have been declared persona non grata by the people who say that I should never talk about burning rivers or places called Makebelieveland.
And that doesn’t cover the fine folks technology way who hate that I say they’re fair weather fans of an overrated team?”
The three main guys put shook their heads, rolled their eyes and in the most ‘lawyerly’ fashion asked if I could try to modify my snark, sarcasm and half witty ideas in some way.
“Well, I’ll give LeBron credit for going home and say he is one of the finest players I have seen. As for the fans, well they may be delusional but I give them credit for loyalty because they are that.”
They thanked me for small favors and asked me to say something else about the Warriors.
“I like Curry and I like Thompson but they could never beat any of my great Laker teams and the fans, well most I have spoken with don’t know about Run TMC or Rick Barry so…”
Can You See Me In The Picture Above?
I’d ask you to blow up the picture and see if you can see me standing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I’d ask you to look for the guy wearing a shmata, but that picture hasn’t been taken, at least not yet.
But one day it will, one day I’ll hop on a bus, fly, drive or Uber my way over to the city and spend a little time seeing the sites.
One day I’ll go and see what the story is and I’ll have new tales to tell but in the interim I am perfectly happy to make them up as I go along.
Whenever I go I’ll probably see an Indians game and assuming LeBron hasn’t left yet I’ll try to see him play too, assuming I hit it during the right time of year.
Sometimes it is all about timing.
My daughter watched President Obama speak about the terror attack at the club in Orlando and I watched her.
Wanted to see how she reacted and responded and thought about what I wanted to say to her.
Thought about how to explain the inexplicable and the insanity that comes with life because there aren’t good explanations for these things.
I ended up telling her how different the world feels to me sometimes from the one I grew up in and how these shootings weren’t something I heard about.
And then I mentioned that I remembered hearing about Vietnam, Watergate, the hostage crisis and how John Hinckley tried to assassinate President Reagan.
I made a point to mention I was in sixth grade for the last event and then talked about how sometimes the bad things get discussed more than the good stuff.
The point was to remind her that insanity is often book ended by lots of really good stuff.
“I don’t worry about being killed or hurt in terror attacks as much as I worry about getting hit by a distracted driver or being the distracted driver. I don’t worry about being shot at or blown up as much as I worry about getting hurt during a pick up basketball game.”
Fortune smiled upon me and she didn’t chastise me again for being the guy who will try to jump over chairs or dive for loose balls on the court because I have heard that more than once.
Usually happens the morning after a game when she sees me rubbing Arnica upon sore limbs.
A Father’s Job
Today, tomorrow and for a good chunk of the week you’ll come across a lot more posts that focus on the shooting.
You’ll get your fill of posts and are Pro or Anti-gun and a ton of political rhetoric. I thought about writing something like that.
It is a good trick for pulling in more readers and a good time to push for your own political beliefs but today I just don’t feel like adding to that particular bucket.
That is why you get/got the other parts and pieces and a more insouciant response to all this activity.
I never ignore the news.
I believe in being educated and informed so that I can argue both sides but I also believe sometimes you need to step back from it all.
The 24 hour news cycle doesn’t always help us understand and process all that is happening.
As a father part of my job is to help my children make sense of the world and learn how to become productive self-sufficient members of society.
That doesn’t happen without stepping back and thinking about all I have seen, heard and read.
3 Reasons Cleveland Can’t Win & 7 Why They Might
When it comes to baseball I almost always root for the National League to win the World Series. In basketball I generally root for the West.
Of course that is assuming my favorite team isn’t in the championship series, but I digress.
In this particular situation I am torn because some of the fair weather Warriors fans have been so obnoxious I almost want them to lose.
Hell, I wanted OKC to beat them in the last round.
But they didn’t and here we are approaching game five on Monday night.
Part of me will be perfectly happy to see them beat the Cavs because I root for the West. Let’s not forget the East is so much weaker than the West it made some people overestimate how good the Cavs are.
All that being said, I am a sucker for a good hero story and LeBron just might be the gunslinger who can save the day.
If he can find a way to will the Cavs back in and take the series, well that could be a pretty cool story.
The Draymond Green suspension gives them a great opening to do that.
Green better hope and pray it doesn’t go that way because his dumb antics led to his suspension.
A Cav’s championship might actually be possible, stranger things have happened.
