MARCH 18th - No Hype. Just Back.



On this day in 1995, Michael Jordan returned to basketball and the Chicago Bulls with a short press release that merely stated, “I’m back.” There was no press conference, no ESPN special, no buildup. Just two words. The greatest basketball player ever had been playing baseball, and then suddenly he wasn’t. He was back with the Bulls for a mini-stretch of games that served as a tuneup for his second three-peat that would start the next season. I’m not denouncing modern technology or the landscape of the 24hr news cycle that pervades our culture. It just seems like everything nowadays is overhyped and hyperbolized to the point of insanity. Every little thing is picked apart and the drama is played up. It’s not like Jordan didn’t have a flair for dramatic publicity. But the way he did things was just so--cool. Switching from 45 to 23 in the middle of the playoff series? And putting up 38 points in that game? Jordan was cool. Space Jam. The shoes. The tongue. Jordan had swag, before the word existed. Just a simple, “I’m back.” And then he was. It took him a little while to get back to being MJ, but when he did, the rest of the league felt it. How many basketball legends did Jordan keep from winning rings? Malone. Stockton. Barkley. Ewing. Miller. Who knows if Hakeem would have his two rings if MJ wasn’t off trying to hit curve balls. And he did it all while being cool. Not to say that he was perfect, or even a great guy. Who knows what would have been dug up had Jordan played in today’s climate. He liked to gamble. He was hypercompetitive. Possibly an egomaniac. Look at his Hall of Fame induction speech, in which he recounted every slight that drove him over the course of his basketball career. But he had a lethal combination. He was great at basketball. And he was cool. And on this day, he was back. No hype. Just back.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more