I believe it was around the middle of June, Salt
Lake City, was in a brutal heat wave, everyday seemed to clear triple digits.
My car at the time was a 1998 Oldsmobile, 88, named "Dolly" she had
some work done cosmetically and internally, she was an aging, national treasure
that represented everything that makes 'Merca, the greatest country in the
world.
The stop and go traffic, mixed with intervals of air conditioning,
one-hundred plus degree weather and the 295,000 miles underneath her hood left
her a little hot and rattly at times. I began to consume podcasts in my longer commutes;
I needed something to keep my mind off the miserable heat and constant fear of
being inside Dolly when she finally croaked for good, oddly enough this is not
innuendo. On this particular day I was listening to Adam Carolla, as he was
going on and on with a repetitive rant about sports; not the instant Huey Lewis
classic; that Patrick Bateman so brilliantly lectures Paul Allen about in
"American Psycho", but just your run of the mill four major sports:
football, basketball, baseball and hockey? You know, jock shit, brah.
The summations of Carolla’s rant was that the
reason people [he] love[s] sports, is that the only thing that matters is who
can play. Race doesn't matter. We saw Linsanity take over a sport with a hugely
black and urban majority of players and fan base. Think about how crazy that is
for a second, you have an Asian player who went to Harvard take over the NBA.
It is literally the exact opposite of the plot to the film "Trading
Places". (This would make Landry Fields Dan Akroyd/Jamie Lee Curtis?)
Age
doesn't matter. Peyton Manning is having the greatest season a QB has ever had
in the history of the NFL and he is 37. At 37 he is on pace to star in more Papa
John's commercials than any other season and win the MVP, it's the equivalent
of when another GOP enthusiast, Clint Eastwood, won the Oscar for Unforgiven at
the ripe old age of 114. As long as you can play that's all that matters.
Racism doesn't matter. There are countless athletes
that have spewed so much hateful garbage that you would think they completely
forgot about the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement; this is excusable if
you hail from Texas, where history text books have been “tweaked”. Alas even racism
is forgiven. Just a few months ago a video of Riley Cooper or "Coop"
as no fans call him, went viral with him dropping the "N" word. Not
the "N" word that ends with an "a" and Jay-Z rhymes with jigga but the "er" kind that
was repetitively used in "12 Years a Slave". Philly fans for
the most part as well as the Eagles, led by Don Henley, I mean Michael Vick, have
forgiven Coop, and now Coop is catching touchdowns. AGAIN, as long as you can
play that's all that matters.
I play sports regularly but it is not my
profession, I have amassed my gargantuan fortune [sarcasm] as a lineman, not as
a football lineman but a man who cooks food on a line. I have done everything
from sushi to sauté. Either you’re selling crack rock or you got a wicked jump
shot, or neither and you have to work at a restaurant. For the majority of us
working in a restaurant is “Friendville” with someone you want to be more than
a friend. You take a step back and wonder, what wrong turns did I take to wind
up in Friendville? The restaurant is our Friendville; what series of wrong
choices did we make to find ourselves in this beyond beleaguered, nefariously
underpaid profession where the terrible hours are nothing compared to our lack
of health care. Working a line is like going to war, and with that being said…
I have and would go to war with
anyone who can hold his or her own. If they had my back, I had theirs. I have
gone to war with: old men, old women, lesbians, (lipstick and butch) gays, (top
and bottom) people of all races, people of all income brackets, republicans,
racists, democrats, people with tonsils and people without tonsils. Whether it
is front of the house or back of the house, it is more diverse than even the
most calculated ad for the Gap. You could have a hostess working nights in high
school take you to your table, be waited on by a gay waiter with multi-colored
hair, have your order made by a 58 year old illegal immigrant named Consuela,
and the supplies were delivered to the restaurant by a driver who just got back
from a tour in Iraq.
My old Chef, Brett, was a culinary
genius. His litmus of food was only challenged by his knowledge of music, with
an emphasis on classic rock. Brett, was a above average height, slender man,
with a long pony tail that reached his lower back and shaved sides which he
referred to as his “hillbilly white walls”. Brett, had a coarse voice,
naturally full of base only amplified by 40 years of smoking, Brett was 47 by
the way. His labyrinthine lines of facial hair was constantly being stroked by
his thumb and index finger while he tried to make sense of the tickets as they
poured in at an unimaginable pace during a lunch rush. Brett, as brilliant as
he was, followed suit with the rest of the cliché chef traits, mainly he was a
fucking asshole and suffered from crippling alcoholism. For everything that
Brett lacked in coping mechanisms and emotional stability he made up for in his
love for his sons. Three boys ranging in age from 13-19, all of them different
and excelling in everything from sports to music. He knew he never had a chance
but if he played his cards right his children would erase him and become his
new litmus.
A few years ago Brett, learned he
fathered a son he never knew. I don’t recall his name so I will give him a
Hunger Games name, that seems to be popular at the moment, how about…
Cobblestone Habberdash… We’ll call him Dash for short. Dash, had all the
shortcomings your typical life growing up with out a father would so generously
provide you with. Dash, needed a job and luckily his father ran a restaurant.
In no time Dash, was behind the line with his old man; only culinary brilliance
and gastro passion did not appear to be hereditary. Dash, struggled mightily in
nearly every measurable category and wasn’t strong in the intangibles and
instincts you look for in someone so green. Brett, had no choice, Dash, was let
go. Brett knew if his line fell, prep would have to be pulled from the back to
help the line, if prep fell behind, the menu would be stripped, with no menu,
no customers and no customers=no jobs.
It doesn't matter if you are the child of the late
and great Dr. Jerry Buss, if you can't ball you don't play, you're not starting
over: Shaq, Kobe, Kareem, Magic, hell you're not starting over Smush Parker.
It's as simple as that. These rules are borderline laws because we are talking
about multi-billion dollar industries, with championships, fan bases, jobs, not
just their jobs but front office jobs as well, general managers and coaches
botch draft picks and the developments of players all the time and pay with
their jobs. We are not talking about little league here. The New York Knicks
have made headlines this season due to under performance and nepotism. Stand
out 6th man, J.R. Smith, allegedly finagled his highly under qualified little
brother a roster spot, in the off season the Knicks lost Chris Copeland, a big
man that had a team friendly salary and would have helped fill the void left by
the injuries and limited minutes of big men Amare Stoudemire and Tyson
Chandler. This nepotism has cost the team any shot of a future this season. The
entire season for a fan base and organization gone because they ignored the
unwritten rule of sports.
There are a lot of parallels in the
sports and the service industry. The most glaring of all being that the
majority of the people in these industries, couldn't succeed doing anything
else and they wouldn't feel comfortable in any other profession. It is an
industry for those who don't really fit in to the corporate norm, maybe we want
neck tattoos, maybe we hate waking up before noon, maybe we swear like
roughnecks, maybe we keep it too real, and maybe we’re gay? Wait-what?
So why if in sports and the
restaurant industry where so many people start at the very bottom of society as
outcasts and misfits, we are kindred spirits in so many ways. Why no gays in
sports? If Michael Jordan were gay would he have been any less skilled? If
Peyton Manning were gay would he not hit his receiver as dee--- actually let's
use a different analogy. If Mesi had a boyfriend would he be any less skilled
with the ball? The NFL has rapid declining little league numbers, this dwindles
their talent pool, with already declining numbers do they NEED to be the
progressive sport to survive another generation? Will children growing up want
to risk concussions for a bigoted sport?
When you exclude any from
participating are you slowing the growth. If Stern wanted to cement his legacy
and globalize his sport, if Goodell wanted to go down as a saint as opposed to
a villain in the annals of history, if Selig wanted to be relevant for
generations, if whoever the hockey commissioner is wanted an up and coming part
time writer to learn his name; simply find a gay superstar, be the trailblazer,
heck make them a Portland Trailblazer, they have a liberal community. There are
only so many Jackie Robinsons and Jackie Robinson moments left in history, jump
on board and write your name in the stars.
The younger fan bases and players
become the closer we get, the more of the buying power we will possess, the
older perhaps more close minded higher income earners will eventually cease to
exist. I personally feel like everyone I know, even if they use to oppose the
gay rights movement has started to come around. Even my catholic, Mexican
mother, has come around I don't know anyone under the age of thirty that has
any serious issue with the equalization of gay rights and I live in UTAH!!!
The more we make it the “norm” and logically and pragmatically talk about these
things, the more footing we gain. The advancement of gay equality in sports and
in life go hand in hand, they feed one another. We strive towards human
equality, and if we are so close, a gay sports superstar may be the straw that
breaks the camels back. We have gay: heads of state, actors, musicians,
scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and even clergymen. A
sports super star is the final frontier; it can knock the door down to equality
across the board. We are all waiting for you. Be the hero you are destined to
be.
The average age of the Utah Jazz is
24.9. The top 3 picks in the upcoming NBA draft are presumably in some order:
Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins and Marcus Smart their average age is 18 and 10
months. Stephen Curry, is the face of a franchise for a team that’s about to
move the gayest city in the world. These aren’t the players your grandpa grew
up watching, this isn’t George Mikan, these players are listening to Macklemore
& Lewis, they are on Twitter, they wear hipster glasses, care about their
brand perception, are VERY fashion savvy and if I were to
make a Seinfeld reference to them, they probably wouldn’t get it. I am 28 years
old and have a 5-year-old daughter; which means in that the draft class of 2016
will be closer to my daughter’s age than to me. They will roll their eyes at us
when we try to explain to them the brilliance of a Simpson’s joke, Nirvana will
be playing on the oldies station, entire meals will come in pill form and will not be close minded bigots.
The Sports Guy and soon to be Sports Czar, Bill
Simmons, believes we are right around the corner from a gay superstar. Although
looking at his football picks, he should be trying to jinx it. I for one will
be proud to call myself a sports fan, knowing that I support the most
progressive industry in the world; an industry that welcomes the underdog and
the outcast with no way out, and gives them a means to create opportunity for others who by nearly any other means would not have one.
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