I still Love This Game

I am still in a place, and I hope I always will be, where my years begin in September and end in June. I live on a school calendar and I mark life transitions based upon summers—where was I and how was I living and what was I dreaming about and reading and who was I in love with and where was I subletting… I also remember these transitions around one other thing.

The NBA Finals.

I remember sitting on the floor of South Union Street on a hot dusky summer night, before we had furniture, boxes and beanbags, with H and Brennan, the only light in the house the tv screen glare while my then beloved Chicago Bulls trounced the Utah Jazz. That summer we were always listening to Public Enemy's He Got Game and every night was sweltering even at dusk… I remember a dingy basement on South Willard Street, a tear-streaked Michael Jordan curled on the glossy court floor hugging the championship trophy to him (I still reeling on the joy of his return). Those LA years in the smoky backrooms of the Roost in Atwater Village eating stale popcorn and cheering on the Kings—thank god for Peja—even in this Lakers territory. I remember when I still liked Tim Duncan—I liked his compsure and his quiet command of the court and this unstoppable pair of he and David Robinson, who seemed to have been on basketball courts since before I was born.

But mostly, I remember this.



The UntouchaBulls anyone? I fell in love with basketball watching the Chicago Stadium battles against the Blazers. My summers began when Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Scott Williams, BJ Armstrong, John Paxson (you get the idea) started taking over. Nothing sends shivers down my spine like that ubiquitous image of Jordan’s shoulder shrug after his 6th three-pointer in game one against the Blazers. I love nothing more than lip-reading the trash-talk between Jordan and Barkley when ESPN Classics re-runs the ’93 Bulls-Suns Finals. I feel exhilarated at the thought of these series. I’d never been an athlete. I grew up in a Chicago sports house, though, and in 1991 I started to get it.

Last night my brother and I sat on the phone together watching the fourth quarter of the Lakers-Celtics game—he in his Vermont living room, me on a 20 second delay on a live feed on my laptop (I don’t have tv…). It really was a fantastic 4th quarter. I’m a Kevin Garnett fan but don’t feel any great passion about the Celtics. And the Lakers? Despite the obvious coach connection, I have a lot of years of Laker animosity. Ok, Kobe animosity. But something really strange happened last night. I was kind of, for the first time in my life, pulling for the Lakers.

“Listen, Heath,” my brother said, as I bemoaned the MJ comparisons. “He’s no Jordan. But he really is unreal. And he’s the closest—no one has even come close until now.” And then we watched silently for a while.

He kind of is unreal.

I couldn’t help thinking, if I were 15 years younger, and I was just falling in love with basketball, would it be all about this?



Instead of this?



Either way, the finals are almost over, the summer is beginning, this one I’ll remember by a Brooklyn rooftop view, a cross-continental visitor, a sweltering week in June, a birthday party in the Park and the Celtics and the Lakers.

Are you an out-loud? Or on-paper?

I don’t really know anything about hip hop and as a writer I am the opposite of a performer and I have never been a poet or a lover of the stage.

But I saw the most incredible thing on Saturday night.

These guys host free workshops for teenagers all over the city—on community building and spoken word and performance and DJing. I’ve seen their Executive Director in action, as he used to teach poetry workshops for my program in South Central LA—and his energy and language and ability to make his kids dream so big is inspiring. When I heard they were hosting the city-wide Grand Slam finals—not to mention one of my amazing students was a finalist—I convinced my friend Charlotte to spend a Saturday night in the auditorium of Washington High School watching 23 teen poets (and then some) spill their hearts out. Loud.

And here’s the thing. These kids blew my mind. They were so brave and fierce and confident and powerful and elegant and loud. They gave each other so much support and love. When one finalist walked onto stage and froze, all 23 finalists stood up and cheered and said to her you have this, you can do this and they didn’t sit down until she lifted her voice to the mic. Nobody edited or cut their words. Nobody said you can’t say that or that doesn’t sound right. They just put their words together and threw them out to us. I couldn’t believe how brave and intense it was.

You won’t see me competing in poetry slams any time soon. Nor will I ever teach spoken word and performance well. But I’ll never question its power. And it has me thinking— what are the best ways to teach story-telling? To teach confidence and to develop our own language and voice? Is it always on paper? Or is it sometimes out loud?