Friday, May 14, 2010

Wooing Makes Fools of Us All

It was enough to make Mars cringe, to throw his gold chain and medallion in the Hudson River.

Cheers reverberating off the ceiling and rafters of New York City bars as the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers battled in a decisive game six in the National Basketball Association Eastern Conference semi-finals. But it wasn’t transplanted Bostonians celebrating every Celtic basket or rebound, and every LeBron James turnover or missed shot. It was die-hard New Yorkers: Fans of the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Giants, Jets, Rangers and Islanders.

They stood in bars around New York City Thursday night, the wishful suitors, praying that the one they want to woo the most gets pulverized, embarrassed, humiliated so that they can offer comfort.

“They hurt you, King James, those big bad Celtics? Then come here and we’ll love you, come to our Garden and we’ll embrace you. Forget that we prayed for you to lose, for you to become a loser. We think you’re more apt to join our losing team if you’re a loser. So lose James, lose. We want you and we don’t care if you have to be hurt in order for you to love us.”

Even Spike Lee, the ultimate Knicks fan whose movie character Mars once insulted a black man by calling him a Celtics lover, was cheering for Boston to win, hoping that a wounded James, not a victorious James, would be more likely to come to the hapless New York Knicks.

Mars is throwing up right now.

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