Some Different Ideas From a Good Friend December 11, 2002 Like Steve Kelley, I have some pretty dubious friends. Unlike Steve, however, my strange friends are not just fictions of my imagination. Nor are they largely representative of my alter ego like Ducky Ponds & Jim Ratt (although I did write a column once mocking the aforementioned that included the opinions of one "Ratty Pondscum", if I recall correctly). No,this friend is real. Well, as real as it gets in what some have described as my psychotic world of make-believe. Owing to the fact that he comes from a country once thought to be harboring Osama Bin Laden, he will have to remain somewhat anonymous. But he does exist, I assure you. And he's pretty sure he knows who made those last Bin Laden tapes -- his uncle told him. But that's the subject of another column. I called Sohail (oops) Tuesday morning to see what he thought about Rashard Lewis being suspended. As usual he had a rather unique perspective, at least for Americans -- which he now is, I might add. Later we would recall some of his earlier ideas on American sports when he had come to this country nearly 30 years ago as an engineering student whom I met at the University of Washington. I had told him that he wasn't NEARLY "anal" enough to be an engineer. Our relationship got off to a rocky start, because at first he thought I was making fun of him. "What is the meaning of this 'anal'?" he asked. "Does it mean I am thinking through my ass?" "It means far too narrow-minded & regimented," I responded. He seemed to accept that explanation. SoHi, as his American friends called him, was way too much of a free spirit to imagine him bogged down in the red tape of beauracracy as he built bridges & dams in between giving backshish to generals & politicians. He didn't think much more of working within the system than most of us did in those days. So it wasn't long before he convinced his wealthy family that he would be better off taking flying lessons & becoming a pilot than learning all this nonsense in school which had little application in a country run by the good old general network. Once they agreed, he quickly got his single engine license, soon following his VFR rating with one for instruments, twin engine, & even float planes. Once he compiled enough hours & ratings, he eventually became an instructor at the now-defunct Bellevue airport. Some of you older fans may even remember seeing him on the news when he took over for a terrified student & landed their plane on its belly & one wheel of a crippled landing gear after crashing through a perimeter fence & coming to a rest in an adjacent field.The local TV interviewer, of course, wanted to talk about what had happened & the range of emotions they had felt as the drama unfolded. But, as usual, Sohail wanted only to talk about the Sonics & the championship they had just won at the time. As the phone crackled & our voices echoed, Sohail became irritated. "I see your 'friends' are listening as usual,".I said. "The price we pay for 'freedom'," he answered sarcastically as the line suddenly became crystal clear. "Oh good," he chortled, "Now we can get down to some serious talk. How is it that with all the money the American government spends on their vaunted technology that they cannot keep such a simple thing as a wiretap properly adjusted? You know in my former country, they have been doing a better job of it for AT LEAST 50 years! But anyway, now that we have improved fidelity, let me say unequivocally that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about crop dusters, or fertilizer for that matter." Some would say that Sohail was simply paranoid. But considering where he was from, that he was now a senior pilot for a well-known national airlines now on the verge of bankruptcy, & that there was obviously something continually wrong with his phone that Verizon never seemed to be able to fix -- maybe he wasn't so crazy or paranoid after all. Trying to steer the conversation around to a less sensitive topic, I asked him what he thought about Rashard Lewis being suspended for a rather questionable incident. "Maybe he should get married to that girl -- what was her name -- 'She Who Stands With Fist'? If Rashard took an Indian name -- say 'He Who Puts Fist in Fellow's Face' -- would she then become 'Mrs. Stands With Fist in Fellow's Face' or what? Maybe they could hyphenate it." I knew better than to let Sohail get rolling on his favorite movie, "Little Bigman" with Dustin Hoffman. So I quickly reminded Sohail of some of his earlier views about basketball & how they might relate to this situation. "Remember your idea about how when one team was slaughtering another, the vanquished team should be given the option of sending a delegation of coaches & players to their opponent's lockeroom during halftime? Come in waving the white flag & saying something like, 'O.K.,you guys are obviously better tonight. Let's just forget the second half & go get something to eat, see what's happening out there'. Remember that? Could something like that apply here? Ya know, like in protest of the suspension, the Sonics can simply say, 'we don't want to play this game if Rashard is suspended. So we'll forfeit & you guys can have this game'." Sohail thought for a minute. "Well, after watching the Lakers outscore -- was it Indy? 44-15 in the fourth quarter last week to come back & win, now might not be the best of timing. But I still like the idea. Many teams simply go through the motions in the second half of games sometimes; why not the whole game? Actually, now that I think of it, that wouldn't be such a bad idea. Forfeiting the game would have too many repercussions & for many, many reasons could never realistically happen. But how could you prevent a team protesting such a suspension from just aimlessly throwing the ball around before throwing up an ill-advised errant shot? And on defense, they would be a complete sieve. The coach, after substituting the entire team & getting similar results, could just throw up his hands & say, 'We simply didn't have it tonight'. Gary could say, 'The whole team was kinda ill. I think it was the 24-hour flu or something'. That way, even though everybody KNEW they tanked it, the NBA really couldn't do anything about it. If they did this on the road so as to show no disrespect for their fans, people here at least would be more inclined to say, 'Right on! We're tired of the league being in total control; it violates our free speech rights'. Soon, attendance would decline as word leaked out in advance that there would be similar 'work slowdowns' planned at such games in future protests. I mean, if the unions can do it, why can't the player's association? They are, after all, a union, are they not?" "Well, knowing David Stern as I like to think I do, I can't imagine he'd let that continue for long," I said. Sohail responded, "Yeah, but if the team stuck together, what could he do about it? To reiterate, the unions do stuff like that all the time. At least it wouldn't be TOTAL anarchy. They wouldn't be throwing stuff at the referees & flipping Stern off in front of the cameras. Just a nice orderly 'work slowdown' as their way of saying, 'Here's what we think of your BULLSHIT, Mr. Commissioner'." Now before you start telling my friend that he's crazy & to go back to where he came from, remember first of all that we, or our family, all came from SOMEPLACE originally. And like it or not, there is always a curious logic to any solution proposed by Sohail. For instance, one time he wanted to know why our various sports had such differing rules of conduct. In hockey, the officials would stand by & watch players fight until there was an appropriate break in the action before jumping into the fray. Then, after the medics had attended or a player had been hauled off in an ambulance, was the offending player kicked out of the game? Well no, he was sent some place called a "penalty box" to "think" about it for awhile & basically just rest up before returning to start the mayhem all over again. After all, this is what most hockey fans, being closet WWF afficionados, actually came for & WANTED to see anyway, Sohail surmised. Sohail was obviously a big fan of George Carlin. He contrasted the above behavior with our beloved basketball where players could be kicked out of the game (and sometimes were) for merely giving the referees a dirty look or laughing at them. Nor were these two sports at opposite ends of the "civility" continuum, the only variations out there. In tennis, you could completely lambaste the headlinesman or whomever as long as you didn't actually have contact with him. Yet in golf, God forbid if you should make a math error in signing your card, you would be ruled ineligible. In baseball, you could get right up in the umpire's face & kick dirt on the plate or whatever, presumably as long as your breath was OK, & not get booted out of the game. But don't even think about removing a base & running around with it like a wildman. Anything that involved the groundcrew's union was grounds for immediate suspension & a hefty fine. In football you could actually knock an official to the ground as long as you said you were sorry & helped him up. But if you refused to say you were sorry, he could throw his kerchiefed bean bag in your eye & blind you with absolutely NO repercussions. In soccer, or "football" to the rest off the world, you could send a guy off on a stretcher & get only a "yellow card" for it. And in boxing, anything short of killing the referee was usually acceptable. Sohail's idea was that there should be a uniform code of conduct in sports so that if you happened to come from a different part of the world where they were unfamiliar with the etiquette of a particular sport, you wouldn't be made to feel like you came from a different planet for not understanding. What was acceptable behavior in one sport likewise was in another. What got you sent off in one competition likewise did in all. I had to admit that it made sense in a bizarre sort of way. However strange Sohail's ideas seemed to someone first meeting him,one always had to admit they had an unusual sort of logic to them. For instance, since it's the holiday season, I'm reminded that Sohail would often bring us gifts from his many travels throughout the world yet completely space out birthdays, Christmas, & the like. His explanation was that if you saw something that you thought a friend would like, you should buy it for them regardless of whether or not you had to for a specific occasion. He refused to be ruled by "the gods of Madison Avenue", as he put it, who dictated when & how often we had to buy gifts for our friends. He figured it should be a spontaneous act of affection. And as usual I kind of had to agree with the strange logic of this wonderful man. God I miss him. Happy Holidays everyone! The legendary and infamous David Kronfield has been a SonicsCentral.com columnist since day one. David can be reached at heavyd@sonicscentral.com. All opinions expressed in this column are solely the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other columnists or the SonicsCentral.com staff. Got an opinion on this column? Discuss it in the SonicsCentral message boards. The Curmudgeon's Corner Archive