Another stomach punch loss by the Knicks last night, oy, it's uncanny how often through the decades they've managed to perpetuate the same pattern of defeat over and over. It goes something like this: Adopt the Underdog role, give your fans low expectations but an itchy gnaw of belief that there's a chance for success, play amazingly well throughout the game but relinquish the lead by the end only to lose in the final moments or play awful the entire game but then fight with all your heart and guts to overtake the deficit...only to lose in the final moments.
Although I won't go as far as to say that the Knicks are responsible for my love life in this lifetime I will aver that they've most certainly added the garnish to my romance cocktail of distrust which has quenched the thirst of a belief that floods my system with the idea that all encounters with females will end in heartbreak.
I mean, what I feel now definitely has the same DNA structure of how I feel when I'm blown off or rejected by a woman although it would be a lot more fun if I could watch the game of me in my game so I can cheer myself on during my approach or hurl obscenities at the opposing beauty when she commits egregious fouls that go unnoticed by the Universe and Gods of Love.
So why do I do this to myself? Why watch the games? Why incur the stress of a defeat that really has nothing to do with my life? Because for me, sports have always provided the perfect petri dish to experience and observe the myriad of ways humans perform for victorious results. As an Entertainer/Actor/Comedian/Verbal Warrior I will always be fascinated and drawn to methodologies that bring me to my fullest capacity of expression when I perform for an audience.
Despite never actively participating in any school team or recreational league at any point competitive sports has always had a significant impact on my life. I'm not a guy who just passionately roots for his teams but one who loves to play them as well.
As someone who has watched thousands upon thousands of hours of sports what's exciting and what really hits home with me is the precipitous tightrope an athlete tip toes in pushing too hard for results or just being in the zone where everything flows effortlessly between their physical and mental efforts. As a Comedian and Artist I'm always seeking those tasty fibers of being where I've escaped the clutches of the Monkey Mind; to exist in a free associative state where I'm trusting every moment. To be present without having to go within or dip into my bag of tricks to deliver the performance that's daring and full of impact.
Since getting back into playing Basketball for the past year or so I've really been astounded as to how I approach the game and how it's such a perfect mirror for where I'm currently at in my life and what challenges I'm dealing with.
First let me say this, these days I'm in an amazing wonderfully happy space. Every day I pop outta bed and start humming and dancing which eventually leads to me singing to my fish as I feed it. I can encounter gut wrenching news stories full of lies and injustice and for the most part not careen into a place of anger. However, I encounter the opposite of the happy love love Issac every time I climb into my vehicle. For God's sake, I have a sticker on my car that says 'Got Love?' yet at every 30 second interval I'm shaking my head in disbelief and hurling epitaphs at the relentless idiocy of the drivers on the fucuckhta streets of La La Land. Being Zen and able to connect to my breath throughout my day has become more and more easy yet get me behind the wheel and I will set a Buddha Statue on fire and curse Gandhi if he cuts in front of me in the left lane of a 4 lane street and then slows down. I just can't get over that, it always whips me into a frenzy; it just makes no sense! Why are you fighting your way into the fast lane to slow the eff down!?!? It's like fighting tooth and nail for the hand of a woman only so that you can sap her career aspirations and lock her up in a home while you run around and dedicate your entire existence to your work...leave the poor female and the free flowing lane alone you putz!
At any rate, I just wanted to illustrate how I'm not one to get into confrontations these days. So it was with bemused bewilderment that was experienced by my higher self as it looked down on the more angrier aspect of me as I almost got into fisticuffs on the basketball court recently. What set me off? Well, I was asked to join a game at the last minute and I obliged. The teams were divvied up and I was given this one dude to guard. The dude took one look at me (wacky hair, Hendrix tee, long workout pants and a weight that was probably eclipsed by everyone's girlfriend in the gym) and immediately pointed to his friends with a smirk as he began making his way into the paint. What does that mean to the lay person? Well, he was thinking "Oh man, I'm gonna post this weirdo skinny punk up and get some easy points'. Oh really? Out of nowhere all my survival and competitive instincts arose from within, it was as if I was being heckled during my act. I immediately began bodying this chump, forearm in the back, holding my ground. Once the pass came into the paint I jumped over his arm swatted the ball, turned and then picked it up before it went outta bounds and hurled it at his leg so that it would be off him and bellowed 'Off your ass mother%$%!$!"
Cut to a stunned gym interspersed with some mutterings of 'damn' and 'oh sh&@'. Cut to a few plays later as we're being separated and put on different players to guard as the putz was threatening me with bodily harm while I yapped at him incessantly. Cross fade to the same guy and I crossing paths at the end of the game and acknowledging each other with a fist bump as his eyes whispered 'Aite lil' man, way to not back down'.
I've always thrived in these situations, coming outta nowhere, performing in order to prove something, sneaking up on you and not knowing what hit you; it's the element of surprise that fuels me. Some of my grandest most satisfying comedy shows have been where I'm aware of the audience reacting in a way that says 'Wow, who the hell was that guy?'. It's when there's expectations or an undue amount of pressure to live up to the idea of who I might be to people that I find myself subconsciously looking for ways to sabotage the moment. That's not to say that I don't perform well when there's a lot on the line, it just takes a lot more focus and energy to manifest the results I want.
There have been many instances in games where I've excelled at this role. I'll never forget that intense pick-up game in San Francisco 20 years ago where my two friends vouched for me and talked me up so that I could participate in the skirmish. The satisfaction to hear them roar and talk smack on my behalf after I hit two long jumpers in a row cannot be measured. I know, 20 years ago and I still remember it so vividly. I have quite an amazing claptrap of a memory yet it's interesting how I've retained so many images and moments of success throughout every year of my life when it comes to sports.
I think one of the most indelible moments of my athleticism has to be when I played with MCA of the Beastie Boys on the same basketball court around 15 years ago. Back when I lived in the city I used to frequent this concrete court in the Lower East Side where the games were super competitive but never obscenely contested; meaning that cats rarely took themselves so seriously. Anyway, one afternoon after finishing a game who happens to show up with several dudes but Adam frikkin' Yauch. I was and am an enormous fan of the Beatsies and was tickled to no end by one of my heroes being in my midst; quite a lanky shadow of a guy and not nearly as tall as I had thought. He was unassuming, humble, perhaps a bit zooted and had you not recognized him you'd never now he was an international rap superstar at the time. So he was on the opposing squad and I was so thrilled by his presence that I proceeded to have one of the greatest games of my life. I was all over the place, making ridiculous moves, spinning on a dime, playing relentless defense and even checking Senor Rhymin' & Stealin' at various moments (he didn't really have that good of a shot). What didn't occur to me at the time was that he was probably thinkin' that this was normal for me when it wasn't even close to being true.
So halfway through the game after defending a shot I spun and went for the rebound off the front of the rim. People...I jumped so high for this rebound, I mean high, higher than I may have ever jumped in my life, time stopped. I remember looking to my left and noticing the rim for the first time as if I was witnessing a pussy close up for the very first time, I'm surprised I didn't make an effort to lick it. I then remember looking down like Wild E. Coyote over an empty space above a canyon hundreds of feet in the air and wondering 'Well how the hell am I going to get back down to earth?' Next thing I know I'm plummeting as a poof of a cloud inhabited the space I had just occupied in the stratosphere with no idea how to land. Somehow I managed to outlet the ball but I landed smack square on my elbow...ouchie. I played in pain for the rest of the game but was not the same and after denying the pain for days went to a doctor who confirmed that I had a hairline fracture and put me in a sling for weeks.
Now why would this never leave my mind besides the fact of MCA being there? It's because that it's an absolute proof that while jubilant excitement can lead to an enhanced performance it still provides the peril of defeat once you dip into self awareness and let the mind comment on your current state. I was having the show of my life but once I propelled into unfamiliar territory, rather than continuing on the flow and trusting that I was capable enough to handle the results I was generating I popped out of myself and said 'Yo Z, look down'.
But what has to have had the most profound imprint on my psyche during this lifetime happened during a children's game when I was 8 years old. Ah, ye olde kickball field, I rue the day it triumphed over my impudent yet fragile spirit. Back when I was in grade school there was less hysteria on how kids were handled. There was no insane amount of laws and rules that prohibited kids from acting like kids. There were no overarching agendas of intense safety and suffocating behavioral conditioning; we were basically allowed to do whatever the hell we wanted to when left to our own devices. This extended to the Teachers as well. They weren't so concerned with being hit by lawsuits or having their foibles exposed through electronic mediums. So it should come as no surprise when I say that we played kickball on a concrete part of the playground during school. This particular day there happened to be some sort of oil slick on what we used as 3rd base. Rather than having the spot in question dappled with orange cones and hazard tape the mere pronouncement of the stately frail Mrs. Nichols to 'watch out for the oil slick' was apparently deemed as sufficient to prevent us from injuring ourselves.
Naturally as teams were chosen by the Alpha Pee-Wees of the class I, being a bowl-haircutted lil' runt of a kid, was among the last chosen. I believe I was second to last, picked before the portliest girl of the bunch. For whatever reason, this was the day I decided to lash out at my diminished draft pick. As the rubber red sphere skipped towards my diminutive sneakers something raged from within, snub me no more ye mutant height freaks! I blasted that ball clear over the infield and into a gap that caused my schoolmates to chase after it in disbelief. I remember the wind in my face, the soft thud of my feet on the playground as I speedily zipped from painted outline to painted outline; I was incredibly fast for my size. As I neared 3rd base, you can see where this is going, I was clearly looking ahead to glory as the widened mouths of my 'team' either cheered or quizzically looked on at my superhuman feat. It was as if the planet decided to shift on a pinpoint, the ground reflected itself at a ninety degree angle and summarily slammed into my cute lil' punnum. Perhaps one of my classmates had a psychic mother who predicted my victorious punt thus causing them to innocently deposit the oil on the playground that day. Whatever the case was, I slipped on the trap and ended up sprawled and bawling with a busted lip on the stoic pavement. I still have the evidence of a faint scar if you care to look close enough.
A third-rate amateur psychologist can see how this event most certainly could have affected me with a pattern for my subsequent life: To succeed and rail against doubt only to come crashing down face first before hitting the finish line. I've experienced a lot of episodes like this in my life in many different areas dating notwithstanding. Yes the obvious rounding of 3rd base only to slip before home has duplicated itself in many a befuddling female, 'What? But, but you're, it's late and, you came over here and we, what? Leaving why? I...huh, umm, wait, you called me and...come back! I wasn't gonna play Prince I promise!'
I'll give you the ultimate nugget of wisdom that I've gleaned from the accumulation of all of these moments: It's that whatever is meant to show up in your space will show up whether you want it to or not. You can choose to try to squeeze it and control it or let it flow through you without any attachment to its outcome while allowing it to take you on whatever journey it's meant to take you on.
I have never failed or succeeded in anything. I've either been in alignment with all that is or was existing in a way that was either judging or finding ways to control the infinite. My only responsibility is to cultivate my reliance and awareness of my intuition thereby enhancing every moment so it clearly shows me when it's time for me to act and when it's time for me to surrender.
How did we get from the Knicks ripping out my heart 'Temple of Doom' style to such a blatant Kumba-Ya moment? I dunno. What I do know is that I can't wait for Friday for Game 3. I'll make some calls to see about getting some lube placed in front of the Celtics bench.
So why do I do this to myself? Why watch the games? Why incur the stress of a defeat that really has nothing to do with my life? Because for me, sports have always provided the perfect petri dish to experience and observe the myriad of ways humans perform for victorious results. As an Entertainer/Actor/Comedian/Verbal Warrior I will always be fascinated and drawn to methodologies that bring me to my fullest capacity of expression when I perform for an audience.
Despite never actively participating in any school team or recreational league at any point competitive sports has always had a significant impact on my life. I'm not a guy who just passionately roots for his teams but one who loves to play them as well.
As someone who has watched thousands upon thousands of hours of sports what's exciting and what really hits home with me is the precipitous tightrope an athlete tip toes in pushing too hard for results or just being in the zone where everything flows effortlessly between their physical and mental efforts. As a Comedian and Artist I'm always seeking those tasty fibers of being where I've escaped the clutches of the Monkey Mind; to exist in a free associative state where I'm trusting every moment. To be present without having to go within or dip into my bag of tricks to deliver the performance that's daring and full of impact.
Since getting back into playing Basketball for the past year or so I've really been astounded as to how I approach the game and how it's such a perfect mirror for where I'm currently at in my life and what challenges I'm dealing with.
First let me say this, these days I'm in an amazing wonderfully happy space. Every day I pop outta bed and start humming and dancing which eventually leads to me singing to my fish as I feed it. I can encounter gut wrenching news stories full of lies and injustice and for the most part not careen into a place of anger. However, I encounter the opposite of the happy love love Issac every time I climb into my vehicle. For God's sake, I have a sticker on my car that says 'Got Love?' yet at every 30 second interval I'm shaking my head in disbelief and hurling epitaphs at the relentless idiocy of the drivers on the fucuckhta streets of La La Land. Being Zen and able to connect to my breath throughout my day has become more and more easy yet get me behind the wheel and I will set a Buddha Statue on fire and curse Gandhi if he cuts in front of me in the left lane of a 4 lane street and then slows down. I just can't get over that, it always whips me into a frenzy; it just makes no sense! Why are you fighting your way into the fast lane to slow the eff down!?!? It's like fighting tooth and nail for the hand of a woman only so that you can sap her career aspirations and lock her up in a home while you run around and dedicate your entire existence to your work...leave the poor female and the free flowing lane alone you putz!
At any rate, I just wanted to illustrate how I'm not one to get into confrontations these days. So it was with bemused bewilderment that was experienced by my higher self as it looked down on the more angrier aspect of me as I almost got into fisticuffs on the basketball court recently. What set me off? Well, I was asked to join a game at the last minute and I obliged. The teams were divvied up and I was given this one dude to guard. The dude took one look at me (wacky hair, Hendrix tee, long workout pants and a weight that was probably eclipsed by everyone's girlfriend in the gym) and immediately pointed to his friends with a smirk as he began making his way into the paint. What does that mean to the lay person? Well, he was thinking "Oh man, I'm gonna post this weirdo skinny punk up and get some easy points'. Oh really? Out of nowhere all my survival and competitive instincts arose from within, it was as if I was being heckled during my act. I immediately began bodying this chump, forearm in the back, holding my ground. Once the pass came into the paint I jumped over his arm swatted the ball, turned and then picked it up before it went outta bounds and hurled it at his leg so that it would be off him and bellowed 'Off your ass mother%$%!$!"
Cut to a stunned gym interspersed with some mutterings of 'damn' and 'oh sh&@'. Cut to a few plays later as we're being separated and put on different players to guard as the putz was threatening me with bodily harm while I yapped at him incessantly. Cross fade to the same guy and I crossing paths at the end of the game and acknowledging each other with a fist bump as his eyes whispered 'Aite lil' man, way to not back down'.
I've always thrived in these situations, coming outta nowhere, performing in order to prove something, sneaking up on you and not knowing what hit you; it's the element of surprise that fuels me. Some of my grandest most satisfying comedy shows have been where I'm aware of the audience reacting in a way that says 'Wow, who the hell was that guy?'. It's when there's expectations or an undue amount of pressure to live up to the idea of who I might be to people that I find myself subconsciously looking for ways to sabotage the moment. That's not to say that I don't perform well when there's a lot on the line, it just takes a lot more focus and energy to manifest the results I want.
There have been many instances in games where I've excelled at this role. I'll never forget that intense pick-up game in San Francisco 20 years ago where my two friends vouched for me and talked me up so that I could participate in the skirmish. The satisfaction to hear them roar and talk smack on my behalf after I hit two long jumpers in a row cannot be measured. I know, 20 years ago and I still remember it so vividly. I have quite an amazing claptrap of a memory yet it's interesting how I've retained so many images and moments of success throughout every year of my life when it comes to sports.
I think one of the most indelible moments of my athleticism has to be when I played with MCA of the Beastie Boys on the same basketball court around 15 years ago. Back when I lived in the city I used to frequent this concrete court in the Lower East Side where the games were super competitive but never obscenely contested; meaning that cats rarely took themselves so seriously. Anyway, one afternoon after finishing a game who happens to show up with several dudes but Adam frikkin' Yauch. I was and am an enormous fan of the Beatsies and was tickled to no end by one of my heroes being in my midst; quite a lanky shadow of a guy and not nearly as tall as I had thought. He was unassuming, humble, perhaps a bit zooted and had you not recognized him you'd never now he was an international rap superstar at the time. So he was on the opposing squad and I was so thrilled by his presence that I proceeded to have one of the greatest games of my life. I was all over the place, making ridiculous moves, spinning on a dime, playing relentless defense and even checking Senor Rhymin' & Stealin' at various moments (he didn't really have that good of a shot). What didn't occur to me at the time was that he was probably thinkin' that this was normal for me when it wasn't even close to being true.
So halfway through the game after defending a shot I spun and went for the rebound off the front of the rim. People...I jumped so high for this rebound, I mean high, higher than I may have ever jumped in my life, time stopped. I remember looking to my left and noticing the rim for the first time as if I was witnessing a pussy close up for the very first time, I'm surprised I didn't make an effort to lick it. I then remember looking down like Wild E. Coyote over an empty space above a canyon hundreds of feet in the air and wondering 'Well how the hell am I going to get back down to earth?' Next thing I know I'm plummeting as a poof of a cloud inhabited the space I had just occupied in the stratosphere with no idea how to land. Somehow I managed to outlet the ball but I landed smack square on my elbow...ouchie. I played in pain for the rest of the game but was not the same and after denying the pain for days went to a doctor who confirmed that I had a hairline fracture and put me in a sling for weeks.
Now why would this never leave my mind besides the fact of MCA being there? It's because that it's an absolute proof that while jubilant excitement can lead to an enhanced performance it still provides the peril of defeat once you dip into self awareness and let the mind comment on your current state. I was having the show of my life but once I propelled into unfamiliar territory, rather than continuing on the flow and trusting that I was capable enough to handle the results I was generating I popped out of myself and said 'Yo Z, look down'.
But what has to have had the most profound imprint on my psyche during this lifetime happened during a children's game when I was 8 years old. Ah, ye olde kickball field, I rue the day it triumphed over my impudent yet fragile spirit. Back when I was in grade school there was less hysteria on how kids were handled. There was no insane amount of laws and rules that prohibited kids from acting like kids. There were no overarching agendas of intense safety and suffocating behavioral conditioning; we were basically allowed to do whatever the hell we wanted to when left to our own devices. This extended to the Teachers as well. They weren't so concerned with being hit by lawsuits or having their foibles exposed through electronic mediums. So it should come as no surprise when I say that we played kickball on a concrete part of the playground during school. This particular day there happened to be some sort of oil slick on what we used as 3rd base. Rather than having the spot in question dappled with orange cones and hazard tape the mere pronouncement of the stately frail Mrs. Nichols to 'watch out for the oil slick' was apparently deemed as sufficient to prevent us from injuring ourselves.
Naturally as teams were chosen by the Alpha Pee-Wees of the class I, being a bowl-haircutted lil' runt of a kid, was among the last chosen. I believe I was second to last, picked before the portliest girl of the bunch. For whatever reason, this was the day I decided to lash out at my diminished draft pick. As the rubber red sphere skipped towards my diminutive sneakers something raged from within, snub me no more ye mutant height freaks! I blasted that ball clear over the infield and into a gap that caused my schoolmates to chase after it in disbelief. I remember the wind in my face, the soft thud of my feet on the playground as I speedily zipped from painted outline to painted outline; I was incredibly fast for my size. As I neared 3rd base, you can see where this is going, I was clearly looking ahead to glory as the widened mouths of my 'team' either cheered or quizzically looked on at my superhuman feat. It was as if the planet decided to shift on a pinpoint, the ground reflected itself at a ninety degree angle and summarily slammed into my cute lil' punnum. Perhaps one of my classmates had a psychic mother who predicted my victorious punt thus causing them to innocently deposit the oil on the playground that day. Whatever the case was, I slipped on the trap and ended up sprawled and bawling with a busted lip on the stoic pavement. I still have the evidence of a faint scar if you care to look close enough.
A third-rate amateur psychologist can see how this event most certainly could have affected me with a pattern for my subsequent life: To succeed and rail against doubt only to come crashing down face first before hitting the finish line. I've experienced a lot of episodes like this in my life in many different areas dating notwithstanding. Yes the obvious rounding of 3rd base only to slip before home has duplicated itself in many a befuddling female, 'What? But, but you're, it's late and, you came over here and we, what? Leaving why? I...huh, umm, wait, you called me and...come back! I wasn't gonna play Prince I promise!'
I'll give you the ultimate nugget of wisdom that I've gleaned from the accumulation of all of these moments: It's that whatever is meant to show up in your space will show up whether you want it to or not. You can choose to try to squeeze it and control it or let it flow through you without any attachment to its outcome while allowing it to take you on whatever journey it's meant to take you on.
I have never failed or succeeded in anything. I've either been in alignment with all that is or was existing in a way that was either judging or finding ways to control the infinite. My only responsibility is to cultivate my reliance and awareness of my intuition thereby enhancing every moment so it clearly shows me when it's time for me to act and when it's time for me to surrender.
How did we get from the Knicks ripping out my heart 'Temple of Doom' style to such a blatant Kumba-Ya moment? I dunno. What I do know is that I can't wait for Friday for Game 3. I'll make some calls to see about getting some lube placed in front of the Celtics bench.
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