The Lakers’ Sexy Shorts

OK, I admit to not loving basketball. Although I grew up in Indiana, where we were actually graded on how many free throws we could make in gym class (2 out of 5 was passing), I’m not a huge fan of the game. It’s fast paced, which I like, but it’s generally not a fun game to watch on television. It’s much better in person for some reason.

However, if the NBA went back to short shorts – a la the 1970s – maybe I would start watching more basketball. I could get behind watching more athletic men in short shorts.

I remember these shorts from my youth, when I wore them in aforesaid gym class. Everyone’s shorts were a bit shorter in 1978. And 1985. We used to sing that Nair Hair Remover commercial theme song, “Who wears short shorts? We wear short shorts!”, while high kicking like the Rockettes. It was a different, simpler time.

I read somewhere recently that one of the fastest growing segments of the population opting for plastic surgery is men. They get calf implants and neck lifts, nose jobs and lipo. Basically, men are beginning to feel self conscious about their bodies. Finally. Women have had to deal with this issue for decades, which is part of the reason I find this story so amusing.

Sadly, however, the Lakers wore biker pants underneath their shorts. They felt, in essence, that the shorts were too revealing. Women all over the world wear much less than that in rap videos, in clubs, on the street, on the beach. Unless someone is hung like an elephant, I can’t see why these throwback shorts were such a bother. Were women ogling? Did they get some catcalls from ladies in the stands? What was the problem?

My favorite thing was this quote from Kobe Byrant: “I don’t know what it feels like to wear a thong, but I imagine it feels something like what we had on in the first half,” he said with a grin. “I felt violated. I felt naked. It’s one thing to see films with guys wearing those things. … I’d rather stay warm, man.”

Yeah, um, those shorts are definitely not like thongs. There is about a yard more material in those shorts than in a thong, trust me. The next time one of these guys is in a bar staring at a girl in a tube-top she mistakenly thought was a skirt, I hope he gets a shiver down his spine just thinking of the draft from those shorts.

Welcome to the 21st century, fellas. We’ve got plenty of objectification to go around.

Bogus New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t know why people make New Year Resolutions.

Each year, for one magical day, people imagine that they will have enough sustained energy/interest/strength to do the very things that they couldn’t manage to do the other 364 days of the year. Like stop eating potato chips or chocolate, quit smoking, go to the gym at least 3 times a week, be nicer to their in-laws, or write that novel/screenplay.

Not that I’m any stranger to this phenomenon. For years, I’d get on the scale and vow to lose that final five pounds. Or I’d swear to practice Chinese every single day for at least 30 minutes. Nothing I swore I would do ever materialized, but then again, maybe that is not the point. Maybe the point is to give yourself the leeway to imagine the person you’d like to be – if only for one day or night a year.

I’d like to be less of a cynical bitch this year. I’d like to stop worrying about money. I’d like to stop hating egomaniacal sports figures. I’d like to start blogging more about football and hockey, maybe soccer (or the OTHER football) – the only sports I can really watch with sustained passion and interest.

Maybe I can do the latter. My blog has never had more hits than when I maintained that I hate Tom Brady.

Anyway, for now, here are my satirical resolutions:

1. Gain ten pounds.

2. Eat more crap like pie and cake.

3. Start smoking.

4. Stop going to the gym.

5. Lay around on the couch and watch more TV.

6. Stop reading books. Exceptions for romances and mysteries.

7. Get angry and bitch slap people more often about trivial things like cutting me in the supermarket line.

8. Stop volunteering. Screw the poor and homeless.

9. Start a novel and not finish it, again.

10. Try to make this one of the worst years ever.

Happy New Year, everyone!