Those Lakers

Brother Steve asks in a comment (or maybe it was an email) if I am still following the Lakers.

Sadly, yes.  I say sadly because I am not sure that my relationship with same is entirely healthy.  I swear watching the games works me into a fiddle faddle; I start cursing and feel frustrated as hell when Kobie takes it into his head to start dribbling his ass hither and yon because, come hell or high water, he is going to put it up this time around.  I guess I just have some sort of personality conflict with Kobe.  Though on the upside—his stubbornness does lead him to some sublime moments.

Then I start cursing the refs.  And in the playoffs it is easy to curse them.  Because it’s the playoffs, they get uptight just like the players and start making stupid calls—things they have not called all season, and then they are worried the players might start hitting each other and they start calling technical fouls right and left at the drop of the hat, and then at the end of the game—if it is close—because they don’t want to be perceived as having determined a game they swallow their whistles and won’t blow them at all unless somebody is knocked flat and starts to bleed.

Very irritating.

Then I start cursing the announcers.  They say the same damn things over and over with the same clichés attached.  Thank god they are not talking as much about Mister Momentum anymore.  God, I got sick of that.  Mr. Momentum this and Mr. Momentum that.  I wanted to stick Mr. Momentum down their throats.  And very few people are calling a jump shot a “J.” Crap I hated that.

And if the Lakers start playing poorly, I start cursing Kobe, the refs, and the announcers, and it’s all pretty frustrating because sitting there cursing like that doesn’t do or change a damn thing.  Moreover I am a solitary curser.  I watch the games by myself.  Lots of people get together or go to a bar or something so they can curse along with everybody else.  Maybe as a cursing mob they feel empowered.  I just feel impotent.

Some people I know actually can’t watch the games.  They get sick with anxiety watching.  So they TiVo the games, and will watch them only after the game is over, and only if the Lakers win.  That way you can spare yourself a lot of agony.

But I don’t have a TiVo so I curse them live and in real time.