Jonseing

Basketball Jones - Barry White and Chris Rock

Sure, sure - I know.  The original is here.  (And wow - Cheech & Chong would prolly get strung up for that cartoon in this day and age.)  But who can resist Barry White?  You want some chicken?  LOL

The Borrowed One has been playing in the church league.  And I drag him to all of his games.  So right now...I got a basketball jones. 

And last night - I actually watched an ACC tournament game.  On purpose.  (Not entirely true - Earl was a rerun.)  I may, emphasis on MAY, even play brackets this year.  With money.  Which is making me feel kind of dirty.

But let's talk about playing ball for Jesus a bit.

The league consists of local churches, all men.  I'd say it's about a 50/50 split between white churches and black churches.  So pretty much on any game night, you're going to see something pretty dang entertaining.  I tend to be entertained by everything there but the actual game.

Before each game starts both teams and the refs meet at half court and say a prayer.  Most of the crowd goes silent but sometimes there's a lot of talking going on and you don't get to hear anything until AMEN is said.  Let me tell you, I LOVE it when the black church teams get to pray.  The game BO played last week was against a black church and there was lots of Faaather Goyed! and Lore-ed in that sing-song deep voice.  (Must be the Barry talkin'.)  This prayer was focused on good sportsmanship to "ourselves, our teams and each other."

And then the game started.

And that prayer was pretty quickly forgotten.  Commence trash talking, pouting, distracting moves - I can't stand the WOO HOOs someone will make from the defense when trying to get the offense to pass them the ball (but it does sometimes work).  Sometimes I want to stand up and scream YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYING BALL FOR JESUS!!

Which is why I told the husband for the last two seasons that he will NEVER play ball for Jesus.  He can't keep his mouth shut from the trash talk, cusses too much and doesn't go to church.  No Jesus ball for YOU!

But mostly, it's all done with fun and nobody gets truly hurt.  Feelings are a different story.  At least this year with the new church BO is getting a lot of play time instead of riding the bench so Mr. Spectacular Ball Hog can play the entire game with no breaks.   Let me tell you, driving you and your entire family 15 miles into the country to play ball for Jesus and BO just rides the bench...yep, that'd piss anybody off. 

Sometimes I do more people watching than pay attention to the game.  

There's an Episcopalian team, white church - there's got to be something in the communion wafers over there because EVERY guy on their team is TALL.  Not just tall but almost abnormally tall.  The guy who works at Quizno's plays on this team.  I fight the urge to yell GO QUIZNO'S! when he makes a good play.

Another white church team, Methodists - they all look like a bunch of farmers.  Mega farmer tans beam from under their tank jerseys.  There's one guy in particular that just cracks me up - his hair is a little on the longer/bigger side (but still short) and he's got a bit of the crazy eyes.  When he's in his game, HE'S IN HIS GAME.  His eyes are always blazing but when he's played for a while his hair sweats up and gets crazy and he gets all read in the face.  Very Ernest T. Bass like.  And I am in the stands laughing like a hyena on the inside.

There's another white church team, also Methodists and a dude that looks like Jay (Silent Bob's friend) right down to the long blond hair.  Having an almost fivehead, he also arches his eyebrows so it looks like he's in a constant state of surprise, but his eyes are barely open like he's stoned.  This is something I just can not look away from.  He is Mr. White Basketball as far as he's concerned.  He comes to the court in civilian clothes, carries an enormous duffel bag into the locker room and re-emerges as Mr. W. Basketball in his uniform - complete with matching shorts (church only provides jersey) and a few support items, usually one long sock looking thing  on his arm and some tape on the fingers.  He is a pretty good ball player though.  And not really horrible to look at.  Last week he treated us to undressing at the bench instead of the locker room.  *waggles eyebrows*

There's another guy on a white church Methodist team that used to look like Lars Ulrich.  When we first played him last year it was driving me nuts because I thought I knew that guy.  I searched and searched and SEARCHED my mind trying to figure out where I knew him from.  Elder Spawn went to a game and saw him and said, "That dude looks like Lars."  And I slapped my forehead like I could of had a V8.  Sadly, now I have to say USED to look like Lars because homeboy got him some Just For Men and his hair is darker and he's way less Lars-y now.  This team also looks like a bunch of farmers.

The refs are awesome.  One of them is my former Vice-Principal from high school.  He's very Richard Roundtree looking and acting.  Daaaaamn right.  He was straight up in school and he's the same on the court.   A few games ago a parent was pissed over a call he made and the parent yelled out something smart-assy.  When he said it, it really did sound like it came from the court and Mr. Moe whipped around looking for who it came from and I almost peed my pants.  I'd seen that look before, sitting in his office, receiving a lecture.  Shut yo mouth!  The parent noticed Mr. Moe was pissed and said it was him and the rest of us in the stands were all nodding our heads like good little school children.  The man's still got it.

As much as I like basketball and enjoy rooting for the team, I know that this too shall pass.  We start tournament play Monday.  Based on the team's performance this season, we're not going to go very far unless we get really lucky.  

And I'm kind of glad.  My hands hurt from sitting on them all the time and my tongue hurts from almost biting it off.  It's not just the Husband....I couldn't (or rather should not) play ball for Jesus either.