Tag Archives: Friendship

Friends Wanted: Must Love Basketball

So I recently sent my “friends” the following email:

Guys, let me paint a picture for you:

It’s summer. You know this because of the familiar heat vaporizing the dew into a thick morning haze that would cause you to sweat through your shirt. It would, but you’re not wearing a shirt. Your beloved team captain won the right to multitask. Sun and fun. The other team is uncomfortably “shirts”. So you’ve got that going for you.
Frankly, you haven’t played in a while. And it’s exhausting. I should really drink more water. Your hands are soaked with sweat from touching your opponents shirt. You wipe it on your shorts before taking off around a screen. Moving left, you step with a series of functions happening in a wave of physio-nostalgic perfection. A catch, a turn, a shift in weight, a subconscious aim, and a release that feels unsettlingly familiar. The undissected poetry of motion happens in the space of a second, and it’s all rewarded with a “thwip” that is partly a sound and mostly a fire. Clients, bosses, responsibilities and demands are incinerated by the moment. You are metabolising the world’s bullshit. And you’re doing that with basketball. 

I’m thinking 10 am at Kiwanis Park. 2525 Noble Road, Raleigh, NC 27608. Invite whoever and let’s get a few games before the World Cup or the real world start needing you back at Noon. What do you say?

So I have one of these friends committed. A backout move from the brothers Cooksey that I can’t be too angry about since I recently committed and backed out of watching USA World Cup game (we’ll call it even).

You’d think that painting a word picture about playing basketball on a sunny, American morning could sell a free activity these days. It didn’t. But like any self-centered A-hole, I’m not taking responsibility for any of this. I blame my friends for making poor decisions. If you need me, I’ll be playing my imaginary alter-ego in a game of HORSE this Saturday.

He always lets me win,
Russ Diesel