jbeecham
ASFN Addict
Posted by Paul Shirley: March 24, 2005, 9:30 p.m.
MIAMI -- We had today off, which is good news for my legs. Exhaustion is about to set in, what with all these 40+ minute nights I have been putting in…Wait…I somehow got confused and thought I was writing Shawn Marion’s journal entry. Sorry about that. Anyhoo, a day off is always a good idea, in my book. If I were a slightly more conscientious basketball player, I would have used the extra time to do some weightlifting or conditioning. Since I am not, I went to the beach.
I am a huge fan of the beach. I played for part of one year for a team in Barcelona, Spain, and developed a deep affinity for the sand and surf while there. My apartment was exactly a five minute walk from the Mediterranean Sea, so it should not be too surprising that I came to this opinion. The greatest thing about living near the water is that there is always something to do. Bored? Go to the beach. Can’t figure out what to do at the end of a first date? Go to the beach. Got a few knock-off sunglasses that need sold? Go to the beach. The only problem with my time in Spain was that the beach in Barcelona set the bar a bit high—because of the rampant toplessness. My compatriots in the sand today in Miami (the usuals—Mike Elliott, Erik Phillips, Aaron Nelson, Jay Gaspar—the trainers, etc. to whom I refer often) were quite impressed because we saw two girls sans bikini—in like three hours. In Spain, I became desensitized to the female form. It started to shock me to see girls with their tops on. Of course, this level of liberation has its drawbacks. Just as men see less wrong with walking around public locker rooms in the nude as they grow older, women seem to lose track of the correct age to begin covering up. It got pretty flabby out there some days.
Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa joined us by the water after a while. They and the rest of the group spent some time in the ocean (gulf? My geography is not what it once was), while I looked on like the kid who did not get picked for the kickball game. I had made a grievous error with my wardrobe choice, donning khaki shorts with no auxiliary option when I left the hotel. Poor planning. I did manage to remember to buy some sunscreen at the hotel. I took care to apply it liberally. For those not familiar with my appearance, I may be, with the exception of Kirk Hinrich, the whitest player in the NBA, and was not keen on ruining the rest of the road trip with a blistering sunburn. (Upon further review, it would appear that my sunscreen application skills have grown rusty. A significant trapezoidal area of my back is angry with me for allowing so many of the Miami sun’s UV rays access to it. I guess I am going to have to work on this deficiency while poolside in Phoenix.) When my compatriots returned from the water, we listened to the most [uptight] lifeguard to ever grace Miami Beach yell at people for having the nerve to play paddleball on the beach, decided we had had enough, and retired to the pavement for the rest of the afternoon.
This is my first trip to Miami. Neither of my partial-season stints prior to this one had brought me here, so my opinion of the place was a blank canvas this morning. After the trip to the beach, the frame was looking rather bright and colorful; by the end of the day, it was filled with grays and browns. Miami has the same problem as many cities famous for their nightlife — it is chock full of people trying way too hard to have a good time. Like New Orleans and Las Vegas, it is place that would be worth visiting once in a while, but I cannot imagine living here. I am sure that some would disagree, but the place, at least near the beach, has a very false feel to it. Almost everyone I saw today, be they muscle-bound [morons] with bad tattoos, or bleached-out, implanted girls, looked like their entire goal in life was to impress those watching them. (As an aside, I will now declare the tattoo trend dead. Not just over — that happened a couple of years ago. Dead. Is there anything more passé than the arm or shoulder tattoo on the male of our species or the symmetrical lower back tattoo on the female? On a further tangent, because this is how my brain works, Tom Gugliotta has the worst tattoo in the NBA. The barbed wire on the bicep is bad enough to put him in the running; the fact that it is the dreaded “I thought I could get away with not having it complete the circumference of my arm” type puts him over the top. It is like wearing a tie that is not only ugly, but is a clip-on to boot. Ugly is at least forgivable; the clip-on aspect makes it reprehensible.)
We gave the beachside area a good solid walk-through. My personal highlight was probably finding out that I was at one point walking a part of the A1A which, for some reason, brought some closure to my life. When I was about 11, as my younger brothers and I would jam to Vanilla Ice on my brother Dan’s tape player, I always wondered what A1A meant. Now I know that it is a highway that flows through Miami, slowing to become a choked street in South Beach. Hooray. Steve spent a good portion of his time being quite the ambassador for the NBA, stopping for pictures and handshakes with well-wishers. The rest of us watched the bizarre assortment of passersby, while Steve was assailed by a group of guys looking for photo opportunities. As we stood waiting for him, a youngish girl did a double-take as she passed the scene and asked me, “Is that a famous person?” There it is — Miami — worth measured not by one’s own recognition but instead by the recognition of others.
MIAMI -- We had today off, which is good news for my legs. Exhaustion is about to set in, what with all these 40+ minute nights I have been putting in…Wait…I somehow got confused and thought I was writing Shawn Marion’s journal entry. Sorry about that. Anyhoo, a day off is always a good idea, in my book. If I were a slightly more conscientious basketball player, I would have used the extra time to do some weightlifting or conditioning. Since I am not, I went to the beach.
I am a huge fan of the beach. I played for part of one year for a team in Barcelona, Spain, and developed a deep affinity for the sand and surf while there. My apartment was exactly a five minute walk from the Mediterranean Sea, so it should not be too surprising that I came to this opinion. The greatest thing about living near the water is that there is always something to do. Bored? Go to the beach. Can’t figure out what to do at the end of a first date? Go to the beach. Got a few knock-off sunglasses that need sold? Go to the beach. The only problem with my time in Spain was that the beach in Barcelona set the bar a bit high—because of the rampant toplessness. My compatriots in the sand today in Miami (the usuals—Mike Elliott, Erik Phillips, Aaron Nelson, Jay Gaspar—the trainers, etc. to whom I refer often) were quite impressed because we saw two girls sans bikini—in like three hours. In Spain, I became desensitized to the female form. It started to shock me to see girls with their tops on. Of course, this level of liberation has its drawbacks. Just as men see less wrong with walking around public locker rooms in the nude as they grow older, women seem to lose track of the correct age to begin covering up. It got pretty flabby out there some days.
Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa joined us by the water after a while. They and the rest of the group spent some time in the ocean (gulf? My geography is not what it once was), while I looked on like the kid who did not get picked for the kickball game. I had made a grievous error with my wardrobe choice, donning khaki shorts with no auxiliary option when I left the hotel. Poor planning. I did manage to remember to buy some sunscreen at the hotel. I took care to apply it liberally. For those not familiar with my appearance, I may be, with the exception of Kirk Hinrich, the whitest player in the NBA, and was not keen on ruining the rest of the road trip with a blistering sunburn. (Upon further review, it would appear that my sunscreen application skills have grown rusty. A significant trapezoidal area of my back is angry with me for allowing so many of the Miami sun’s UV rays access to it. I guess I am going to have to work on this deficiency while poolside in Phoenix.) When my compatriots returned from the water, we listened to the most [uptight] lifeguard to ever grace Miami Beach yell at people for having the nerve to play paddleball on the beach, decided we had had enough, and retired to the pavement for the rest of the afternoon.
This is my first trip to Miami. Neither of my partial-season stints prior to this one had brought me here, so my opinion of the place was a blank canvas this morning. After the trip to the beach, the frame was looking rather bright and colorful; by the end of the day, it was filled with grays and browns. Miami has the same problem as many cities famous for their nightlife — it is chock full of people trying way too hard to have a good time. Like New Orleans and Las Vegas, it is place that would be worth visiting once in a while, but I cannot imagine living here. I am sure that some would disagree, but the place, at least near the beach, has a very false feel to it. Almost everyone I saw today, be they muscle-bound [morons] with bad tattoos, or bleached-out, implanted girls, looked like their entire goal in life was to impress those watching them. (As an aside, I will now declare the tattoo trend dead. Not just over — that happened a couple of years ago. Dead. Is there anything more passé than the arm or shoulder tattoo on the male of our species or the symmetrical lower back tattoo on the female? On a further tangent, because this is how my brain works, Tom Gugliotta has the worst tattoo in the NBA. The barbed wire on the bicep is bad enough to put him in the running; the fact that it is the dreaded “I thought I could get away with not having it complete the circumference of my arm” type puts him over the top. It is like wearing a tie that is not only ugly, but is a clip-on to boot. Ugly is at least forgivable; the clip-on aspect makes it reprehensible.)
We gave the beachside area a good solid walk-through. My personal highlight was probably finding out that I was at one point walking a part of the A1A which, for some reason, brought some closure to my life. When I was about 11, as my younger brothers and I would jam to Vanilla Ice on my brother Dan’s tape player, I always wondered what A1A meant. Now I know that it is a highway that flows through Miami, slowing to become a choked street in South Beach. Hooray. Steve spent a good portion of his time being quite the ambassador for the NBA, stopping for pictures and handshakes with well-wishers. The rest of us watched the bizarre assortment of passersby, while Steve was assailed by a group of guys looking for photo opportunities. As we stood waiting for him, a youngish girl did a double-take as she passed the scene and asked me, “Is that a famous person?” There it is — Miami — worth measured not by one’s own recognition but instead by the recognition of others.
