Whatever gaps existed in my functional knowledge of the city's landscape didn't curtail my awareness

Pensacola, Florida, has the country’s worst drinking water. When tested for chemicals, cyanide (you know, the thing that people take in movies and then DIE), chloroform (the thing people inhale in movies and then pass out) and something called radium (as in radioactive) appeared. You would literally be better off licking a New York City subway pole than putting the cocktail of death that is Pensacola public water into your body.
Paradoxes interweave the human experience. You know, oddities like the hot dog to bun ratio. Or, as it pertains to micro-sociology and basketball, Chicago, a city whose streetball pedigree rivals New York and Philly, but whose playgrounds look more like Chinese Ghost Towns than basketball courts.
In August national car rental discount of 2011, the dream team of 2009 reunited national car rental discount in The Big Onion. Nearly three years later, Four things stand out about that trip: Our friend who was getting certified in massage Rolfing us silly; my caloric national car rental discount intake being somewhere around Michael Sweetney at Old Country Buffet (we woke up to find a neighborhood festival taking place 10 feet from the front door; Midwestern meat booths far as the eye could see); Lake Michigan being a terrible alternative to the beach (It’s overcrowded, the water is slimy and teenage lifeguards patrol the perimeter in rowboats, preventing anyone from going out farther than waist deep); and decent pickup ball being incredibly difficult to find.
At the time, most of what I knew about Chicago came from George Wendt’s national car rental discount professional barstool guide to beer “Drinking with George,” the SNL skit where Chris Farley chokes on an entire steak, Pizzeria Uno’s and the documentary “Hoop Dreams.”
Whatever gaps existed in my functional knowledge of the city’s landscape didn’t curtail my awareness of its place in the culture of basketball: Beyond the Italian Beef, Polish Sausage national car rental discount and Deep Dish Pizza, is a city whose reputation is as much basketball as it is heart disease.
national car rental discount How many times has ESPN postulated about Benji Wilson, Isaiah national car rental discount Thomas and Derek Rose and how their Chicago-specific styles of play could only have been learned on the cracked concrete of The Windy City? Hell, even the president balled up in Chi-Town last election day.
In the brutal national car rental discount August humidity, by subway and foot we traversed the city in search of basketball. Jennifer Connolly went into the Labyrinth to save her brother, and while not quite as heroic, you probably could have watched the film twice in the time it took us to find a game.
Deserted courts made us desperate. In despair, we turned to one of those juice bar and sushi gyms. Even there, the gatekeepers turned us and our free guest passes away on the basis that “all basketball courts are the same.” Yes, and all free weights are different?
national car rental discount Our opponents were doppelgangers, 30 years our senior: national car rental discount Four black men in their early-50s reminiscent of Stanley from ‘The Office.’ These were guys who had probably played together national car rental discount since before we were born. The man I was guarding was a robust six-foot-four, 400-pounds of raw beef. His lack of mobility was a huge hindrance to his game, but if he was able to get his sweaty sausage links on the ball there was no denying him.
This was athletics at it’s finest; when people of completely different backgrounds, races and classes intersect with each other in a competition that promotes mutual respect. In the most segregated city in the country no less. (Two years ago, the Manhattan Institute conducted a study that concluded that in terms of isolation and dissimilarity national car rental discount the Windy City is unmatched.”)
This isn’t an everywhere thing though. Recently, a dude at my Brooklyn gym warned me to cancel my membership in May because “no one plays inside” (I’ve seen kids in New York City ballin up in the snow).
Remember national car rental discount inn “Everything I am” when Kanye West rapped, “just last year Chicago had over 600 caskets, man killings some whack shit ? In the same eight-year span, the city nicknamed Chiraq had as many murders as Americans were killed in Iraq. It’s hard to fault anyone for not wanting to lace up their Jordan’s in the face of indiscriminate drive-bys for most, the risk of getting shot far outweighs the reward of playing ball.
Noah Perkins graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts at Boston in 2012. He’s a philosopher, sociologist, explorer and world traveler who spends far too much of his time roaming cracked concrete courts and deadwood floorboards across the country. He also happens to be the younger brother national car rental discount of OBW creator Sam Perkins. Noah currently resides in New York City following a cross-country move from San Diego. He continues to live the life of “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski, except instead of bowling, he plays far too much basketball.