HOW TO SUBMIT: E-mail dimebag@dimemag.com with your question/story/idea and include your name and hometown.
Another week, another DimeBag. This week the analytical mind settles the junk vs. trunk debate, addresses social norms for blind people and laments about the Nets.
Pat, Toronto:
When returning to your seat in the middle of a row during a game, does etiquette demand that you walk with your junk facing the people in your row, or your trunk? Maybe it depends on whether you would rather watch a bunch of supreme physical specimens running up and down the floor attempting to throw a piece of leather through a modernized peach basket, or whether you would rather scan the crowd above you for other types of physical specimen, knowing in your heart that you’ll see more to disgust you than amuse you? I’m obviously very confused.
Awesome question. Any time you can cram basketball and awkwardly intimate human contact into one coherent thought sequence, I’m impressed. Even more, you managed to successfully detach “junk,” from “trunk,” two normally inseparable entities, so well done again. Alright, enough uncomfortable gushing.
Ultimately, this needs to be broken down through gender to appropriately address all situations. The key here is not necessarily whether you prefer to watch basketball or the other idiotic fans – it’s about the seated guest’s comfort. If they wanted to punch you in the face and attack you, there’s literally nothing you can do because once you enter those inexplicably narrow rows, you’re trapped.
Before we get started, let it first be noted that if you side-step back to your seat during the action, everyone on your row has the right to slap you across the face and kick you in the nuts – so be forewarned.
Let’s operate under the assumption that the majority of fans are male – a fair one, I think. If you decide to face the crowd, you’ve essentially decided that each guest must endure your junk for at least two seconds – and there’s nothing they can do about it because it’ll be at eye level. So their only response is to sit up, lean back, contort their faces awkwardly and diffuse the situation immediately after by pretending it didn’t happen. Or, as per my rules, thrust their knee upwards – which, due to the insane proximity, would be an indefensible maneuver. As a row-walker, you’re playing with fire. And as Spiderman taught me, with great power comes great responsibility. Then there’s the whole female thing. If dudes can’t handle the eye-level junk shot, imagine how the girls would feel. So if there are more than a few girls in your row, moral law forbids you from facing the crowd.
Now let’s flip it around – what if you’re a girl re-entering your row? Guys want to look at your backside, frontside, sideside, wherever. But even though it’s a lose-lose, there’s a lesser of two evils. If you face the court, you’re leaving your ass exposed. Which, for the thousands of creepers out there, is ideal. But for your sake, turn around. No one’s going to poke your bellybutton or touch your crotch, especially when you’re six inches away to see it. But if you’re turned around and your visibility is diminished, who knows what will happen. So for safety’s sake, turn around.
Jeff, Milwaukee:
Last year I went to a Bucks game with my son and a basketball, hoping some of the players would sign it pre-game. Because I’m an idiot, it got confiscated at security. At first I was pissed and didn’t get why they’d take my basketball, but then I realized people could just chuck basketballs onto the court mid-game. So, if you could do just that, in what situation would you do it?
I thought about this for a while, and realized most of my ideas would result in horrific injury, the wrath of a 6-foot-something, 200-something-pound jacked dude or a stoppage of play and me being without a basketball anymore. That is until I concocted this implausible scenario. You know how LeBron and Wade went Brady to Moss on Indiana with this full court alley-oop? I’d just replace Wade. Granted I’d be sitting behind the basket and would have replaced my slightly flabby tendinitis-ridden right arm with Peyton Manning‘s cannon, but still. If LeBron took off with his head down, maybe I could just chuck it with supreme accuracy and pray he wouldn’t notice the ball change. I think that YouTube video would top one million hits in under a day. “Random white guy throws alley-oop to LeBron, LeBron celebrates by tossing him his game salary, three quarters.” Either that or I’d roll the ball under Bruce Bowen‘s feet after he rises for a corner three just so he can know what it’s like. And then, while he’s writhing in pain due to his high ankle sprain, I’d take my other basketball and chuck it at his face. Double win. Where is this Bruce Bowen hatred coming from, you ask? From here.
Daniel, Chicago:
If I were blind, the concept of eyebrows wouldn’t make any sense to me. One line of hair above each eye? And that looks normal? It’s expected of people to have that? I wouldn’t buy it. What are your thoughts?
The whole notion of conceptualizing sight if I were born blind blows my mind. But we won’t get into that. I will, however, have to strongly agree about the eyebrows. I’d also wonder about leg hair. Why do women have to shave it but men don’t? That would clearly indicate some sort of underlying societal power structure. Yet then there’s facial hair – men are generally expected to shave it as well. So what’s the difference, really? That’s where the power structure is infiltrated and somewhat undercut. If women are less hairy, and men are always shaving some of their hair, are they trying to look like women? Remember, you’re blind, so these are legitimate questions.
And then of course there’s the hair on your head – why do men have to keep it short but women generally let it grow? Isn’t this completely contradictory to the standards of leg hair? I don’t get it. It’s all very confusing. And if I were blind, I’d probably just think that humanity’s social code is stupid and leave it at that.
Rich, Philadelphia:
How disappointing is the Brooklyn Nets’ lack of name change?
I actually addressed this question in the inaugural DimeBag, and I was hoping for Brooklyn to go with “New Yorkers.” Frankly, I thought Prokhorov had more balls than that, but who am I to argue with an international prostitute smuggler. What’s more frustrating isn’t the lack of name change, but the mere fact that they stuck with “Nets.” That would be like if Utah got a football team and named themselves the “End Zones.” It really doesn’t get less creative than using a necessary piece of gaming equipment for your team’s nickname. They might as well have flipped to a random page of the dictionary – I would’ve preferred the New Jersey Philosophers or the New Jersey Sidewalks.
While I understand that the NBA cannot control what teams name themselves, there is one thing that bothers me – when teams relocate, they don’t always change their name. The Utah Jazz? What is that? There’s no jazz in Utah. That’s a thousand miles away in New Orleans. Or the Los Angeles Lakers? Have you ever been to L.A.? There are highways, not lakes. It’s not Minnesota anymore. If you can make the effort to shift an entire basketball organization across the country, you can change the name as well. Don’t be lazy, greedy owners.
That’s all for this week. Check back next Wednesday for Volume VII.
HOW TO SUBMIT: E-mail dimebag@dimemag.com with your question/story/idea and include your name and hometown. If you really insist on being a sketchy anonymous Internet weirdo, I guess I can’t stop you. So at least provide some sort of name and location.
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