The Basketball Expatriate

by C. Bradford Eastland

  But I do know that when I decided to make London my new temporary "home" I do know I was pretty fuckin'....well, I guess I was pretty depressed. Okay okay okay, still am. Needless to say this hasn't been the greatest vacation I've ever had. But even so, as depressions go, for me this appears to be a pretty extreme case. I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of the race. Maybe. But thinking about it now, after the fact so to speak, I'm probably just bummed about not hearing from my agent about any NBA or CBA jobs. That has to be the root of it, don't you think? I even made sure to have my mail forwarded from Petworth to the closest post office I could find, right near Gloucester and Cromwell, so at least I could check it every couple days. For all the goddam good it's done me. Everything would've been fine if I'd just gotten a couple offers. But since basketball is my life, or was, and since I never got any more mail, not yet anyway, I can only assume that's why I was, am, so damn down. You'd think with all the crummy shooters out there, there'd be at least one enterprising coach out there who could use a proven "long-distance specialist" to shoot the 3-pointer. I guess for all intents and purposes my glorious basketball career has ended right fucking here, if you can believe it; at age 27, in a foreign country, smack in the middle of a smelly stuffy grungy little hotel room no more than twelve feet square, with no bathroom, no sink to piss in, no pictures on the faded yellow walls, and only a single window that refuses to open no matter how much I push and pry and complain. Let's face it.

  (And when I say grungy I'm not kidding. Just look in your damn dictionary. The word grungy is defined as a combination of "grimy, dingy, and grunt". And the word grunt is defined as "a childish euphemism for defecate". Which means shit. And that says it all.)

  As far as the rest of this crummy hotel goes, it's no wonder my complaining never does any good. What do you expect from a hotel that doesn't even provide maid service? That's right, I soon found out that they only change the sheets between guests. If you want clean sheets every day, what they're saying is that London is a town with about a million fuckin' laundromats so go do it yourself. And none of these Arabs really speak much English. Well, I should say a few of them do, but the ones that do speak English have an English accent, of course, and there's nothing worse than an English accent coming out've a smiling Arab's face. I think they're Iranians or something. Or Iraqis. (I always do mix those two up.) Let's just say they all look like that actor Omar Sharif. They all have his ridiculous smile, too. Big, white, perfect, phony-looking teeth, you know. They smile every time they see me, and I mean every single goddam time any of them see me, any of them, they smile. You'd think sometimes they don't even know I'm an American for godsake! But they know. I made sure of that. When I first signed the register I made sure to list my home address as simply "L.A., USA", in big old obnoxious capital letters.

  I should probably be more specific with regard to my difficulties with these Arabs. What I mean is, it's really only one particular grinning nutty Arab that really gets under my skin. The head doorman. I know he's the head doorman because his stupid lapel badge he always wears says "AMIR"---HEAD CONCIERGE on it. He's the main one who looks just like Omar Sharif. Looks just like him, it's creepy. But the main reason he's the one who sort've gets to me is that he's virtually the only one I really ever see! I mean it. Seems like virtually every time I leave the hotel or come back to the hotel he's there, sitting inside his circular desk next to the door, and it doesn't matter what time of day either. Practically every morning when I leave the hotel to gather up the day's newspapers he's there, when I get back he's there, and some evenings when I might take a quick little walk around the West End, just to grab some chow or stretch my legs or once in awhile have a couple drinks, when I get back I know he'll be there too. By my calculations, this guy has to be working about a 90-hour week, I'm fucking serious. He couldn't possibly have any kind of social life. Probably never gets laid, either. Personally, I get the feeling his whole suck-ass life boils down to waiting around for hotel guests to pass through the door of his hotel, just so he can say good evening or good morning to them.

  And that's another thing about this guy that drives me nuts. They way he says "good". Like the two o's were the letter u, or like the two o's in "food", know what I mean? The long u sound. So it always comes out "Gude morning, sir!" or "Gude evening, sir!" or "Gude af'noon, sir!", man I'm getting so sick of it. You would've thought that somebody along the way, some goddam articulate Englishman for instance, would've mentioned it to him just once, straightened his ass out for godsake. I suppose I could do it, for that matter, but I just never think of it. I suppose I'm a little lazy.

  Hell, it wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't smiling all the time.

  But enough of fucking Arabs. Let's talk about me for awhile, my "situation", which shouldn't be too difficult. Because lately my days have been frighteningly simple. They consist mainly of reading every goddam newspaper I can get my hands on. I don't know how I got in the habit. I just did. In fact, going out into the world in quest of news of my "beloved country" soon became my most cherished daily activity, and I haven't missed a day yet. It isn't a snap, either. Naturally my first choice would be news directly from L.A. (for the local roundball gossip), but just to get a fuckin' L.A. Sunday Times I have to take the Underground (the subway) to Piccadilly Circus, to this unbelievably crowded Tower Records store, where you can pick one up, that is to say ransom one, for about three bucks. Of course it's from the previous Sunday. That figures, right? Anyway. Getting a same-day London Times is easy enough, every news-stand from Wimbledon to Westminster has one, but procuring American dailies is trickier. The USA TODAY is available at most news-stands, but the England version is somewhat condensed and it's always a day or two old, and that gets annoying after awhile. The International Herald-Tribune, a paper for Americans living abroad, is one of my favorites, a real decent summary of all the major stories from around the country, but you can't always get it, and that's annoying. I never did get anybody to give me a straight answer on that one. I'll ask a news-stand owner why he doesn't get the H-T every day, and he'll likely say something like, "Depends if we ge' it, mate!". Brilliant. The New York Times is a little easier, but I never could stand those New York writers, the way they bash the hell out of everything that has to do with L.A. To read New York sportswriters, you'd think there isn't any such thing as basketball west of the Mississippi! No, I've never gone in much for the N.Y. scribes. And come to think of it, it's not much different from the way the London Times gets a kick out of bashing anything that has to do with America. jerks....

  And on the subject of "America" I'd just like to say one thing. Just one thing. It sure looks a whole hell of a lot different from the outside looking in than from the inside looking out. What I mean is it really wakes you up to read about back home from over 8,000 miles away. A "different perspective", I guess the saying goes. And when I say different I'm sad to report I don't necessarily mean better. Y'know it's funny. When a kid is growing up, he's led to believe his country is thee friggin' greatest thing going, the best frickin' place on this earth,

  { Entry #17, August 31

  This story I read today has got to be just about the sickest fuckin' thing I've ever heard. Picked up a London Times today, and saw this article about this family in Florida whose home was destroyed by arson. Okay, I thought, no big deal. Except the reason it was destroyed by arson was that the three young boys of the family all happened to've recently contracted AIDS from the same contaminated blood-clotting drugs, and the town is "concerned" about the boys being admitted to the local public school. Yeah that's right, some of the really brave local townspeople burned these peoples' house to the fucking ground just because, maybe this makes sense to you, just because they're "concerned" that their own kids might go and have wild teenage sex or share a friendly dirty needle with these three kids who everybody knows have AIDS. When I read that, man was I pissed off. At first I was confused about how these kids picked it up, but when I finally figured out what the article was tr
ying to say all I could think about was the cowardly butt-fucks who didn't have the balls to handle it with any more creativity than to just torch a house. This stupid AIDS scare has really gotten out of hand. I mean it. I mean it's one thing to be "concerned" about the assholes who spread the shit around just because they can't control where they put their infected dicks, but to burn some family's house down? just because the kids in that family ran into a little bad luck? Y'know I'm starting to get the idea that people don't know enough about this stupid disease and how it spreads. I guess I'm confused about it myself. Because if people knew what was going on, maybe they wouldn't vent their frustrations by picking on helpless little kids.

  And if that wasn't enough, I saw something in the New York Times that made me feel even worse. Call it "civic pride" if you want, but those New York fuckers are always picking on us L.A. folks. I have to admit, though, the subject matter was pretty scary. It seems that my fad-crazed home town has a new fad this summer; spontaneous freeway gunplay. Can you lifelong Midwesterners even comprehend that? Man, a guy leaves town for a few months and all hell breaks loose. And according to the article, these shootings aren't professional crooks or anything, either. Just regular frustrated people. And wouldn't'cha know it'd happen right smack fuck in the middle of fucking L.A. It's embarrassing. Remember the good old days, when if somebody pissed you off on the freeway you simply forced him off the road, pulled him out of his car and just simply beat the snot out of him? Jesus, the whole bleedin' country's going crazy, and I'm stuck here a million miles away in a dive hotel room run by a bunch of crazy foreigners. Actually, being holed up in a hotel room for days on end where I can't let my temper get me into trouble is probably the best thing for me, when I think about it. It's just that I don't like to hear other people bad-mouth my town. It's okay if I do it, understand, I just don't like some other jerk doing it. Especially some skinny-ass New York jerk. It's bad enough I have to keep hearing about and reading about that pre-school child abuse case that went to trial in L.A. back in July, I guess it's already the biggest kid-fondling trial in U.S. history, you know the one I mean, but now I have to deal with hearing about how we Angelinos like to play shooting gallery on the freeways. L.A., land of freeway snipers and child molesters. And the East Coast media will never let us hear the end of it. Cocksuckers....I guess its lucky for us that all that AIDS house-burning shit happened in Florida.

  No more for now. Talking about this stuff is tiring. Moral of the story? That it's best to bury your head in the sand, I guess. But I guess now that I'm into the routine I'm going to keep on top of the newspapers as long as I'm here, just to keep tabs on what's going on back home. Or at least until I can get my hands on a decent sports page. Signing off.... }

  and when his country is the United Fucking States he's taught that we are invincible, that we are incapable of doing wrong, and naturally grows up assuming the whole god damn world looks up to us, idolizes us, wishes they could be exactly like us. I mean it's beaten into you from the moment you can understand English, right?---America first, the rest of the world second. Right? No, not right. The rest of the world, if England can be used as a guide, sort've looks at us like we're a big joke. It took me almost 28 years to figure it out. Call me naive if you want, but it's just that I've never done much overseas travelling so this is all kind've new to me. But you compulsive vacationers know what I mean. It can be rough. All you have to do is read the London Times for a few weeks, you'll see what I mean. The English press looks upon the U.S. as some sort of rich, giant, overfed buffoon. Like we're just a bunch of spoiled oafs or something. Especially our lousy politics. No, they

  { Entry #26, Sept. 10

  Depressing article in the London Times again today. Those fucking Fleet Street wags never let up, you've gotta to hand it to 'em. The race for President is the topic this time, with political shooting star Gary Hart the day's convenient whipping boy. It seems that the candidate has finally admitted that he has not been, and I quote, "absolutely and totally faithful to my wife". Man, when I read that it really hurt. I was all ready to vote for the guy next year, now I'm starting to have my doubts. And not because of his stupid affairs. I couldn't care less about which actress or secretary or goddam prostitute a guy happens to be poking on the side, that's his business. I figure that's between a man and his wife. Infidelity should be a private issue, not a political death sentence. Look at history. But the thing that gets me about Hart is that, up until now, he'd denied everything all along! And he's been a real jerk about it, too. Not any laid-back, here's-a-sly-wink-for-you-good-old-boys denials, but in fact a bunch of come-and-get-me-if-you-can-you-stupid-mother-fuckers denials. And so the press came and got him. Man, what an idiot....If he'd just admitted it in the first place, just smiled it away, or said "no comment" or some stupid thing, it would've been all right. But no, he had to lie. Just like a goddam woman or something. I just can't stand the fact that he tried to put one over on everybody, called everybody else liars who accused him of fucking around on his poor stupid wife, and still has the balls to ask us to consider him to be President. That's fuckin' crazy. No wonder the Brits think we've lost our minds. And that's not all. This article goes on to talk about how the guy's dopey real name is "Hartpence", which he no doubt figured was too goofy-sounding for him to be elected, and that he keeps trying to say he was born in '37 and not '36 like the record shows, just to appear even younger than he is. Goddam politicians. And I didn't know fucking any of this until today. Terrific.

  My advice to Hart is simple, and it's based solely on my own personal experience; never ever do anything to get the press pissed off at you!

  And speaking of the press, the London Times never does let up on the President. It used to really get on my nerves, but I must be getting soft because some of it is finally starting to get through to me. You read the London papers every day and that kind've thing happens to you. Saw something the other day about how often the President was falling asleep during cabinet meetings. During cabinet meetings, for godsake! It took a couple days, but that one has really started to irritate me. It's made me take a good long look at what it is I like so much about the old guy. Frankly, it took a little time to think of anything, and about the best thing I could come up with was that he was the guy who succeeded the unfeeling asshole who boycotted the goddam '80 Olympics, my Olympics. I admit it. I guess by unconsciously taking out my hostility on his predecessor for denying me my Gold Medal, I indirectly wound up giving the President "credit" for not doing it. The guy must be a genius, in this one way that is. His popularity. He's got the whole damn country thinking he can do no wrong, convinced practically everybody with half a brain, like me, that he was the only one in Washington who didn't know anything about this Contra crap. Hell, now that I know he likes to snooze his way through his own shitty cabinet meetings, I'm not surprised. But when I read that he was "hurt" over the Iran/Contra Committee's final report that he "bears ultimate responsibility" for the scandal, because he did not carry out his oath to, how did they say it, "take care that the laws be faithfully executed", I had to blink and read it again. Hurt! The President is hurt that people might think he's not doing his fucking job. Poor baby. Man, if that jive don't beat all. Let's face it, my equally-stupid fellow Americans, either he knew about it all along and has been lying through his teeth (a possibility I try very hard every day to convince myself is not possible) or the doddering old guy slept through the whole thing. Imagine---the company president the only guy in the whole fucking board room who doesn't know the big deal is going down. And he's hurt.

  Serves us right for electing a guy older than my sweet Italian grandmother.... }

  never miss a chance to get in a little dig at one of our leaders, no sir. And they've had a field day with the Iran/Contra affair, believe me. It's embarrassing. That's always the main thing I've had against this jerk North, that all he did was wind up embarrassing the President. I was especially pissed off at the guy before I realized how adept the President is at/////(
scratch that). But listen, dude, they've really taken North apart over here, not to mention all the other dopey conspirators; Meese, Casey, that nut McFarlane that actually tried to kill himself to keep from implicating his sleepy boss, Secord, Poindexter, Bush, all of them. Bush. Now there's a bloke with big testicles. Seems like I'm still reading lately where our esteemed Vice President is still acting like he's actually going to make a run at the Big House. Brother. Here the guy's been virtually proven to've known about the illegal arms sales to Iran and the illegal re-supply of the Contras, knew about both, he's all but admitted it for godsake, and he thinks everyone in the country is just going to forget the whole thing and make him their King? Jesus fucking Christ almighty god damn it....A politician must never forget that Americans have very long memories. This guy has got about as much damn fucking chance of being President as

  { MISC. ENTRY [postmarked December 24; *ed. note]

  Now I've seen everything. Just got through with the most recent available L.A. Sunday Times. Evidently, my old loose-dicked friend Mr. Hartpence has thrown his hat back into the ring. I think I'm going to be sick. Says he wants to "let the people decide". Hell, Gary, I have decided!

  More importantly, a look at the standings reveals the lordly Lakers are atop the Pacific Division, as usual, and the fuckin' shitty Clippers continue to establish new standards for consistency in losing. And I, one of the great 3-point marksmen of modern times, remain fucking unemployed. }