The Celtic Ripper

Posted 25 December, 2010 in Basketball, Random Musings, Sports

I got a high-end chef’s knife and a Bill Russell #6 Celtics jersey for Xmas. I will henceforward be known as The Celtic Ripper. Beware!

Click to enrippen.

Small world moments

Posted 15 December, 2010 in Basketball, Jazz, Music, My poems, Poetry, Sports, The Jazz Session

Several things happened today that reminded me how we’re all connected.

First, a poem I wrote ended up on a show I love, The Basketball Jones. The poem was inspired by a line one of the hosts said on the show and I Tweeted him about it. I certainly never expected it would be read on the show. The reading was hilarious, as were the hosts’ comments afterward.

Second, in the comments for that episode of the show, one of the viewers said that in addition to The Basketball Jones, his other favorite show is The Jazz Session. How crazy is that?

Finally, I went to a job counseling meeting yesterday that was part of the requirements for my unemployment benefits. Today I got an email from a guy saying that he was sitting behind me at the session yesterday and that he’s a fan of RocBike.com and follows me on Twitter.

Totally crazy.

Poetry and basketball

Posted 15 December, 2010 in Basketball, My poems, Poetry

At 11:30 in this clip from The Basketball Jones, you’ll see the strangest thing that has ever happened to me as a poet.

Ep. 629: Trades, Poems, Doodles from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.

POEM: tell the story when the ball is in the air

Posted 14 December, 2010 in Audio Poems, Basketball, My poems, Poetry, Sports

Listen to this poem using the player above.

The title of this poem comes from a surprising place — 3:03 into this episode of The Basketball Jones. Tas Melas says it, and based on J.E. Skeets’ reaction, I think it may be something originally said by Stan Van Gundy. In any case, as soon as Tas yelled the line, I paused the show and wrote the poem. It just about wrote itself. This is not, of course, a poem about basketball. Like much of what I write, it took a turn into Relationshipland.

On a side note, if you’re a basketball fan, The Basketball Jones is a must-see show.

tell the story when the ball is in the air

not after she’s left and the crowd goes home
tell it when he can still be the last-second hero
a hometown Jesus on the shoulders of adoring men
tell the story before she cried, before he made her
tell it while the boy in the nosebleeds
clutches a program to his chest and yells because
this is what men do
tell the story so we can all cheer and buy the jersey
so we can tell the guys at the bar that we were there
tell the story when the ball is in the air

POEM: Weight (November Poem-A-Day 16)

Posted 16 November, 2010 in Audio Poems, My poems, Poetry, Politics & Activism, Sports

Listen to this poem using the player above.

This is poem #16 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. The prompt was to write a “stacking” or “unstacking” poem. I struggled with it until this evening when I was re-watching Unforgivable Blackness – The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, a documentary about the first black heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson. Then this came to me.

Weight
(for Jack Johnson)

in this pile are:

nearly one million gallons of African blood

enough wood to put a COLORED sign on every water fountain

with enough trees left over to hang those three-quarter people from

ten thousand or ten times ten thousand children ripped from their mothers

blood snap of the leather whip on the backs of who knows how many

no one knows how many becaue no one bothered to count

and I ask you:

what does this pile weigh?

and who is strong enough to lift it?

POEM: Cheerleader

Posted 15 November, 2010 in Audio Poems, Basketball, My poems, Poetry, Sports

Listen to this poem using the player above.

This is not part of the November poem-a-day thing. I wrote it at the basketball game tonight.

Cheerleader

I am waving.
I am waving.
I am waving.
No one is waving back.

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