What happened to pickup basketball?

What happened to pickup basketball games in Berkeley?

From the late 70s to the late 80s, I cruised Berkeley looking for pickup games of basektball that provided a good game without too much tension. A little tension was good, though. At various times, I played in games at Ohlone, Live Oak, parking lot courts on Hearst, the Cal courts on Bancroft (gone), Marin School, Claremont Middle School and Willard. I paid to play at the Berkeley and Oakland YMCA and at Club Sport in Oakland's City Center.

This is a picture from Live Oak Park in 1980--strong players of all ages going at it. I lacked the confidence to join in.

Since the 90s, I have almost exclusively played in organized games with people I know. Mostly with white guys in my general age range.

I still keep an eye out for games--but they are few and far between. Ocassionally three on three games break out at Cordonices, Ohlone or Live Oak, but the quality and frequency of games seems to have dropped considerably.

At left, is a game on April 29 at Live Oak. A bunch of white guys who played poorly. I decided I'd have more fun shooting around than trying to join in. Less chance of injury, too.

The last time I played at Ohlone, the first game was at a high level. College guys touching the rim who probably all knew each other. The game ended and they left en masse. The game changed into a halfway house outing with a mixed-bag of players some who couldn't hit a layup.

What happened? I think there are many factors, and few them reflect well on where our society is headed.

Some kids play, but even the best outdoor games I have seen in the last few years were organized at People's Park as part of the Twi-Lite Basketball program. These are "organized" pickup games.

Here are four eighth graders who played with the big boys last summer at People's Park Twi-Lite league. Of course, they knew the organizers.

Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters

These four women have formed my basis for understanding everyone around me and, therefore, where I fit in the world.

I think my father, brother, son and friends (sorry, no gay lover to reveal) had more to do with defining my view of my role as a father, son, friend and brother. The boys are extensions of me, similar to me, much easier to figure out. Unemotional, like me.

These females (and a woman therapist) have have helped me understand that life is not composed of binary decisions--right v. wrong--but of a multitude of world views and beliefs that, even when contradictory, may be both be honest and true.

I am usually right, but not always.

People like me are boring--to me.

Orlando, Ken and I went to B.H.S. together. This is a picture of us across the railroad tracks from Aquatic Park in Berkeley around 1981 for a big outdoor punk show, Eastern Front.

Orlando was a shy artistic type. He wrote songs and took photographs and spent a lot of time in the dark room at BHS.

Ken was into pop culture, especially music, movies and comics. He was the only male in a tap class at BHS.

Neither were into sports. Neither fit into ethnic stereotypes. Neither had fathers around. Both had ideas and perspectives different from me.

I see Orlando ocassionaly on BART or at concerts. He is still living a life on the fringe of society. Ken works for a software company in Emeryville. I see him often.

As I age, I miss meeting people who see the world differently than I do. I am delighted I live in a world filled with compassionate white liberal parents. However, their experiences and insights generally only confirm what I already believe and rarely challenge it.

Orlando was different from me. He lived in the bad part of town on Cornell near Viriginia in Berkeley (not so bad anymore with the increase in real estate prices). He was not good at academics or sports. After high school, he dove deeply into the mosh pit of punk rock and was the cool black guy with the Mohawk. He fronted a band, Special Forces, and called himself Orlando X and other things. He worked security at rock gigs and at a record store on Telegraph. He was alternatively goofy and crazy.

Orlando always had interesting stories about places he went and people he knew. I am glad I know him. Orlando made me feel safer at a few hardcore (to me) gigs where I looked pretty soft and mainstream.

One very intense memory is that Orlando was the only person at my Cal graduation party who backed me up when I kicked a large group of rowdy young men out of the party. The memories are fuzzy, partly due to time and partly due to intoxicants that night, but Orlando was there for me and defused a tense situation by being scarier than the guys we were kicking out. My "regular" pals were scared and intimidated by the diversity and negative energy of the party crashers.

I am puzzled how so many folks just want to communicate and share with people who share and confirm their world view--whatever it may be. That seems boring and uneventful.

Why Don't We Play More?

Sports in America tend to focus on either being a winner or making money. The biggest sports enterprises combine the two. I have been fortunate to have never been good enough to care about winning too much but being capable enough to get to play games most of my life. My mediocrity in tennis, basketball, softball, volleyball, ping pong (actually, I am pretty good at table tennis) and general athletics have enabled me to join teams, pickup games and join casual games over the years. That ability has kept me fit and helped me like myself when other aspects of my life had the opposite effect.

However, for the majority of Americans playing any game is something they don't do. You are either a jock or not.

I have tried to expose the kids to playing games and using their bodies. They are both gifted with size and coordination so playing games is easier than if they were short or weak.

Kyle plays rugby in the spring and football the rest of the year.

Colleen ice skates, plays softball and has recently started to play tennis. Both can dabble in other recreational pursuits, and do, because they are confident and decent athletes.

As anyone who talks to me for more than 20 minutes knows, I play basektbal. I love my two weekly hoops games.

Wednesday's game was started around 15 years ago by a few guys, the Piette brothers, who have since aged out due to injuries and family. Yoram inherited the game more than 12 years ago and we have cycled through 20 or so guys who have moved along. Robert and I left a more argumentative game around 8 years ago to join Yoram and rejoined a few guys who we had playing with for years in another gym. I became Yoram's "assistant" a long time ago and took over the game when he left for Sweden 18 months ago. Mark S. now is in charge (with my "assistance").

Got that?

The Sunday game has been organized by David Weintraub, who is close to 60 and still better than me (dammit!) for almost 20 years. I started as a young newbie a decade ago and am now an older veteran. The game includes all ages, including the ocassional son, and women as well. Not much defense and lots of movement, passing and respect for each other.

Anyway, getting sweating with a few guys (and gals) every week creates an intimacy and understanding between participants that is difficult to explain. When Vern (black guy on D, above) says "Don't let him get it over his head" when I am about too shot, its reveals an understanding of my approach to the game that few people have regarding to my approach to the rest of my life.

Recently, I have lost my two best basketball buddies, Yoram and Robert (below with another old b'ball friend, Josh). I am sad I can't share the antics and experiences in the games with people who share a history with me. Of course, others step forward for that place in the game. I share other things with the departed, who remain non-basketball friends. Most just fade away, though.

The games provide physical and emotional sustenance that will be difficult to replace when my back, feet, knees, or wrist finally give out. I will find a a replacement, though, and it won't be golf. I hope it is with Jeane.

Pee Wee is my Friend--and Yours Too!

Pee Wee and ME!

My sister and I went and saw Paul Reubens a few weeks ago at the SF Sketch Fest. I felt like this event was visiting an old pal I had not seen for ages. I knew we had both aged but was a little scared his crazy approach to life may not have stood the test of time.

The fact that I felt good that he had aged well, that I got to say hello and thanks, and that I shared the experience with real family, was a little disturbing--but mostly very fun. (I am still a little concerned about the heavy lurking behind us in the picture--what are his intentions?)

While I mock those who talk about Brangelina and TomKat as though they were in the same circle of friends, Pee Wee really feels like someone I knew. Heck, even his bust in Florida seemed like a bit of bad luck that could have occurred to someone I knew foolish enough to visit the heart of a red state with his blue state lifestyle.

My concerns about Pee Wee were misplaced. Pee Wee (why bother calling him Paul Reubens--my friend was Pee Wee) had re-tailored his classic oversized suit and was in fine form chatting on the stage with Ben Fong-Torres about the good old days. He shared a few secrets, including that he hid his smoking during filming of the Playhouse, and bantered with a hundreds of old pals. He was even pleasant and allowed people to mingle with him at a bar (for an additional $25--a pretty cheap date really) afterward.

Pee has been close to me for more than 20 years. I watched him whenever he appeared on Letterman in the early 80s. I tuned in when he rebelled against Dave and brought flowers to Joan Rivers on the first day of her new show.

I even went and saw him live at Wolgang's in early 1984, when he took an adult version of the Playhouse on the road to build the buzz before the release of his Big Adventure. When the Playhouse blew up, my sister and I often watched while eating healthy breakfast cereal. He wasn't a friend--he was one of the family!

I know Pee Wee doesn't know who I am--and I doubt he would find me very interesting. However, Pee Wee is an icon for me. His temporary fall at the hands of myopic moralists only adds to my affection. His redemption is even better.

Choosing to have a relationship with a person or entity that we can never really know may be a primitive remnant from days when humanity could not understand the world around us, but I am glad for my relationship with Pee Wee.

He grew up but retained a child-like wonder and optimism about the world around him. He treated everyone--robots, chairs and people of color--with respect.

How many clubs let everyone be a member? Not many.

Do Aetheists have Rituals?

EASTER AT THE TIFFINS

I grew up around, but not part of, many rituals related to the Protestant tradition. My father was a minister. My mother, however, was a disenfranchised member of his various congregations. She eventually left the flock after years of being treated as a pretty woman without any ideas to contribute to the church. The final straw was being disregarded during a search for a new minister at a suburban church Dad was leaving.

Thus, our family had few rituals or traditions that connected us to a society or culture we lived in. We had few of the standard national traditions (Australia Day?) or religious ones, either. We rarely had extended family within 3,000 miles. We were on our own in a time and place that was not doing a great job of creating new events or practices to give people meaning in their lives or a sense of community.

Our family tried a few organizations, usually related to the outdoors. Mostly we came up with our own patterns and connections to each other.

Since my teens, I have flirted with many groups and organizations. Usually, I have felt either excluded or superior to those conglomerations. Self-identifying as an Aussie-Berkeleyan had no meaning other than being and feeling different. I did find a few odd folks to hang around with. I was not entirely alone in my perspective.

Children changed that attitude, but it took time. Jeane and I have wanted the kids to understand they are part of the world around them and not to feel alone.

I wish I had understood more when the kids were younger about what I was looking for. However, their was much value in the process of finding rituals and connections for ourselves rather than having them thrust upon us.

DILLON BEACH 2006

Is there meaning in life?

More than 4,000 years ago, over many decades, primitive men (supported by their women, no doubt) built Stonehenge. It stood for centuries until "modern" humans began chipping away at it for souveniers to give some value to their lives and the money they spent on their two-week vacations. Perhaps members of most western societies need tangible items to give their lives meaning. Clearly, I need photos.

If an event occurs and there are no photos--is it a lesser moment?

I often remember the picture rather than the moment. I fear I am forgetting the emotions and feelings of the event. I am also putting myself at the center of the event rather than participating in the interactions and experience. Pose! Smile!

Overall, I get much pleasure out of documenting my world and somehow feel it makes it more valid and real to have pictures (and words to a lesser extent).

I would love to think that Google's servers will be up in 4,000 years and some youngster will look at my blog and giggle at my effort at immortality and wisdom.

Of course, maybe Jet and Chico have the right idea...

Happiness means never being bored

How could I have an entry about my children without one about Jeane?

Here we are at the new Tate Modern in London.

I am often delighted at my good fortune in getting to spend my life with a woman with so many facets: smart, witty, loves me, unreasonable, argumentative, stimulating (in mind and body), and the list goes on.

I could not have anticipated the emotional effort that went into achieving our ability to communicate and share--and the prospect that continued effort is worth the further input of emotional and intellectual energy.

The good life

Kyle and Colleen are wonders. Strong, unique individuals who Jeane and I can no longer even hope to control. Even the guidance aspect is increasingly limited. All we can do is hope to limit the negative inputs and enhance the positive ones at this point in their lives.

Kyle's choices are almost limitless, but he appears to be making good choices.

Colleen doesn't realize there are still a few boundaries and she constantly seeks to find the limits of those boundaries.

In this picture they are having a good time getting ready to leave our home exchange house in London for a fun day touring the City.