A Slow Night in Gotham City

The Dark Knight Rises will debut in theaters on July 20th. As a fan of the franchise, I feel compelled to promote the movie as best I can, but be warned, I'm not quite sure my columns can match the hype offered by Batman flicks. Regardless, here is a string of journal entries that the Caped Crusader documented during one of his less-eventful shifts.

July 1st, 21-hundred hours: The last few nights, the streets of Gotham have been free of turmoil...a little too free of turmoil. My hunch is that the Joker and his cronies are trying to lull me into a false sense of complacence. The instant I let my guard down, they're sure to wreak havoc on the innocent. I can't take that chance. My watch over this city must remain as vigilant as ever.

22-hundred hours: No sign of super-villain activity yet, but while I was on patrol, I encountered a few teenagers inhaling some wacky-tobaccy behind a gas station. No brute force was required in the altercation, but I made sure to give those baby-faced burners a stern talking-to and a triple dose of $500 fines. (Note to self: Refill stack of misdemeanor tickets in Utility Belt.)

23-hundred hours: Beneath my perch atop this parking garage, a gang of street toughs in baggy pants blared rap music from a portable stereo in total disregard of the city's noise ordinance. Profanity and racial slurs were clearly audible. I shouted down, “Turn off that racket—or else!” They complied, apologized, and dispersed in total silence...which is kind of a shame, really, 'cause part of me has a hankering to kick some ass.

July 2nd, 0-hundred hours: There was no doubt in my mind that I had finally confronted trouble when I spotted a pair of the Joker's henchmen hassling tourists outside of Gotham's Hard Rock Cafe. Clad in matching black leotards, their faces smeared with the pasty paint worn by their criminal overlord, they encircled passersby and gestured wildly in an apparent effort to startle and confuse their victims before mugging them. I leaped off the rooftop and incapacitated one with an ax kick to the skull. His cohort sustained a less merciful beating. I worked him over with a barrage of karate attacks until a youngster tearfully screamed, “No, Batman, they're just MIMES!” I didn't like seeing the boy out so late and said so to his mother...but I had to admit he was right. As I lugged the unconscious bodies onto a nearby park-bench, I complimented both for their commitment to character. Astoundingly, the second mime didn't even utter a peep when I shattered his collar-bone. I fled the scene under the assumption that someone would probably call an ambulance for those creepy clowns.

Mimes? Joker's henchmen? Hell, they all look the same to me...

When I got back to the Batmobile to regroup, I discovered the following note taped to the windshield: “Riddle me this, ass-face: What has two thumbs and just robbed a liquor store? This guy!” It was signed by the Riddler.

Clearly, the man's standards for both crime and riddles have fallen, but still, he bested me this time. When I catch him next, launching him through a plate-glass window is going to feel a little extra-special.

More Stories, and Additional Stories is the name of that eBook. 

The Day Job Basketball League

The NBA is the third-most successful professional sports league in America, but even so, a sizable chunk of SportsCenter addicts despise the Association. I'm not a naysayer of the NBA. It puzzles me that so many fans prefer college basketball to its pro counterpart, as if the sport becomes infinitely worse when played by the most gifted athletes the game has to offer. These same detractors of pro-basketball rarely have such biases against Major League Baseball or the NFL, and so I began to wonder why the NBA is so often viewed with contempt.

A common critique of the NBA is that its players seem so selfish and conceited, but oddly enough, these same off-putting qualities apply to the me-first, “diva” wide-receivers of the NFL, which still flourishes in spite of—or maybe because of—the self-indulgent antics of some of its superstars.

I don't get what's so repellent about the NBA. I have friends who obsess over March Madness. Every year they fill out tournament brackets with great attention to detail. The Final Four pretty much makes their genitals tingle. And, in spite of that apparent fondness for the game of basketball, these friends wouldn't watch the NBA Finals unless they were paid to do so. Any alternative that is vaguely athletic appeals to them more than the NBA does. They'd rather watch a hulking Swede launch a keg over steep wall in his effort to earn the honor of 1991's World's Strongest Man than catch a glimpse of Kobe Bryant draining a clutch jumper to send game seven into overtime.

What gives? I am thoroughly stumped. Maybe Michael Jordan's retirement ruined the NBA for so many. In all likelihood, the league will never be as entertaining as it was from the rookie seasons of Magic and Bird (1980) until Jordan's last game as a Bull in 1998. Or maybe it was all the fault of Allen Iverson for griping about practice and heaving dozens of ill-fated jump-shots when he could have easily passed the ball to a teammate from 1996 until 2010. Or perhaps the blame is owed to the league's conviction that college degrees are totally overrated.

Regardless of the reasons, the game of basketball itself is not the source of the NBA's defamation. The most glaring complaint about a given sport is that it is dull, which is typically attributed to a lack of points. Basketball, to its credit, provides plenty of points as well as a steady and sometimes frenzied flow of action.

NBA-detractors don't purely hate basketball; they just believe the game is played shoddily by overpaid glory-hogs. A possible solution to the apparent NBA problem is to form a league composed of refreshingly ordinary men with day jobs.

In the Day Job Basketball League, no millionaires would be allowed, and furthermore, doctors, lawyers, celebrities, CEOs, politicians, drug-lords, and everyone who earns enough money to qualify as a rich guy would be excluded, too. My proposed alternative to the NBA, the DJBL, would pay its working-class grunts $15,000 per season—a welcome chunk of supplementary income to peasants like you and me—under the condition that they maintain their day jobs while playing games on the weekend. 23 games would be played during the regular season, the top four teams would qualify for the playoffs, and members of the championship team stand to earn $100,000 (which is roughly a fifth of the league minimum in that other b-ball league).

The DJBL consists of ten teams: Barbers, Cops, Exotic Dancers, Janitors, Mailmen, Mechanics, Migrant Workers, Painters, Reporters, and Teachers. Open tryouts throughout the nation will determine the premier ballers of each vocation.

Allow me to elaborate on the strengths and weaknesses of each team in the DJBL.

1.) Barbers

Overview: It's foolish to deny that race is a factor in basketball, and awfully hard to overlook the strong contingency of barbers who excel at talking trash and gushing about hoops in the mostly black neighborhoods of major cities. Led by a handful of swaggering street-ball standouts accustomed to honing cross-over dribbles and reverse layups on playgrounds from Harlem to Chicago to Englewood, the Barbers boast the flashiest team in the DJBL.

Strengths: Moxie; mastery of insults and psychological warfare; highlight-reel-worthy fast-breaks since half the players can actually dunk.

Weaknesses: Shaky transition defense; chaotic half-court offense; three gangling white barbers somehow made the team.

2.) Cops

Overview: With a stern and disciplined approach, the Cops benefit from one of the most physically fit starting-fives in the league. They are probably the DJBL's most polarizing team since—as we learned from the trial debacles of Rodney King and O.J. Simpson—everyone seems to have strong feelings about cops. Whether those convictions manifest as cheers or jeers is up to the fan. I'm torn on the matter because I have a couple cops in my family who are both decent and conscientious men, but on the other hand, I think weed should be legal.

Strengths: A methodical and patient half-court offense; permissible police brutality on defense and in the low-post; deft execution of an alley-oop play cleverly named “21 Jump Street.”

Weaknesses: Outright police brutality on defense and in the low-post gets them in foul trouble; tear-gas disallowed as a means of handling hostile crowds on the road; too many oafish mall cops take up space on a bench that is constantly in danger of snapping in half since the mall cops are so astoundingly fat.

3.) Exotic Dancers

Overview: Aesthetically pleasing to festive finances and horny co-eds, this roster of hunks relies on style over substance and brawn in lieu of strategy. During halftime, they also rely on a staff of makeup ladies, manicurists, and beauticians. Owing to their gaudy swagger and occasional prissiness, the Exotic Dancers are probably the team most akin to an NBA squad. They can score in bunches, but they defend laxly against penetration to the hoop and, well, every other kind of penetration, too.

Strengths: Showmanship; ability to bed women said to be “on the rebound” translates to highly skilled rebounding of the basketball to both members of the team who understand how metaphors work; defenders sometimes get distracted by their shimmering, dreamy eyes, allowing them to net uncontested layups that hurt almost as much as the wounded heterosexuality of a Barber or Cop.

Weaknesses: Showmanship can be a detriment, too, as when the point guard has the ball stolen out of his hands during his trademark pose as the Greek titan Atlas; hands slicked with moisturizer lead to poor ball-handling and subsequent turnovers; leaping ability dragged down a bit by weight of mammoth packages.

You heard me! Mammoth packages. OK, More Stories, and Additional Stories--to reiterate--is the name of that eBook the kids have been talking about so damn much.