The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Arts March 4, 2005

A LARGE CRITIC

A little is never enough with us, is it? We always need more. We’ve all known this for years, or at least we’ve been told this for years. A movie means $12 popcorn and $8 soda. Barbie is nothing without her dream home. A trip to Jamaica isn’t complete without the requisite “We Be Jammin’” t-shirt. Once you pop, you just can’t stop. Double the pleasure, double the fun. I’d wager that, had McDonald’s not opted to “love it,” Bird and Jordan would still be locked in that seemingly never-ending game of HORSE (“... through the window, between Nancy Reagan’s legs, nothing but net.”)

Honestly, I should not have been surprised when I was bombarded by this principle Monday night when I went to the Gund Arena to attend a Cavaliers game. As one of the 30 or so remaining fans of the NBA, I was excited. It was my first NBA game in years, we had amazing tickets and my adopted Cavs were playing the Spurs, the team with the best record in basketball. The whole night was undoubtedly going to be great. Yet the bombardment began the moment I passed through the turnstile.

The Cavs are one of the few NBA teams with cheerleaders. Billed as a “dance team,” this group of women spends most of the game in the stands shaking pom-poms, occasionally bursting onto the floor to perform a routine. Monday night they were also at the door to greet me. Now, let it be known that I have nothing against beautiful women awaiting my arrival. However, this was awkward. Grown men loitered around, trying to engage the women in banter. Unknowingly, this depressing image prepared me for that night’s loss.

Once inside, I was lost in a sea of jerseys. Everyone was wearing LeBron’s 23. This is to be expected, considering that he’s the biggest thing in Cleveland since disappointment, but what was unexpected was how many different LeBron jerseys there were. I saw home and away, four different styles of throwbacks and jerseys from the most recent All-Star game. I even saw one child wearing a replica of the jersey LeBron wore in high school. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many ways of being the same. (It should be noted that Spurs fans were also wearing their own jerseys but, because the current team is so blindingly dull, most were George Gervin throwbacks.)

Now, I suppose all of this shouldn’t come as a surprise and, to some extent, it didn’t. What did surprise me was the pageantry that occurred during the game. While the players dribbled up and down the court, music was broadcast through the arena like this was a pick-up game at the YMCA. During timeouts, Moondog, the Cavs’ mascot, launched t-shirts into the crowd with a giant CO2 gun shaped like a hot dog. And what’s worse, the crowd seemed to need this. The Cavs tied the score with seven seconds left on the clock, against the best team in basketball, and somehow this game required free DiGiorno’s pizza to achieve greatness.

In this age of messy entertainment, I would love to be able to go to a large concert to hear music without a laser light show or read a novel regardless of what Oprah thinks of it. It’s as if nothing is pure anymore. I was hoping I could find some purity in basketball but perhaps purity is not to be had.
 
 

   


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