Jim McIlvane was one of the last of his breed, and I don’t mean hefty white centers who drew outsized paychecks from the New Jersey Nets. With the exception of Jerome James — the paunchy exception that proves the outdated rule — centers don’t seem to get huge multi-year deals off solid playoff series anymore. Maybe from Isiah, but that doesn’t count. It’s basically like winning a scratch-n-win. If I started working out more, got a few tattoos with basketballs in them and began hanging around MSG, I could probably get at least a Jared Jeffries-level deal.
Anyway, I digress. Jim McIlvane, who was never a very good NBA center, has now accomplished something that his Big White Dude peers on the Nets (yes and double-yes) have not, to my knowledge, accomplished. He’s got a blog, and it’s kind of weird. I don’t imagine that I need to mention this link comes via TrueHoop. Here’s Big Mac unexpectedly getting all Master Cleanse on you in a recent entry:
People fast for all different sorts of reasons. Some do it in connection with their religious beliefs. Others do it to “cleanse their system.” I did it for the heck of it. I thought it might help me cleanse my system to some degree, but to get any real benefit, I’d probably need to abstain for a week or longer. I’d also probably need to drink some gacky combination of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper.
I think part of the reason I wanted to do it, was to experience what it would really be like to go without food for an extended period of time. Since grade school, we’ve all heard stories about how long the human body can survive without food or without food and water, but I’ve never really come close to experiencing that firsthand. I think my interest was first piqued back in grade school, when I read a novel about some WWII pilots, who crashed in the Pacific Ocean and floated in a life raft for what seemed like a month or more, with very minimal supplies.
I was fascinated by their stories of collecting rainwater with their clothing to drink, catching fish and birds to eat with virtually no equipment and how their conversations about their favorite meals often made them feel as if they’d just eaten. Over the years, other stories of survival also caught my attention, from fictional movies like, Castaway to the real stories of the South American Rugby team who crashed in the Andes and the three Mexican fishermen who claimed to have drifted for nine months in the Pacific Ocean.
Two days into my fast, I’m now understanding how little my body really needs (at least in the short term) in order to function. I am noticing that my brain doesn’t seem to be working exactly how I’m accustomed. I stopped by the 1510 Mothership yesterday to drop off something for Homer and ended up walking into a staff meeting. Homer put me on the spot and asked me to give everyone two minutes about Marquette. As luck would have it, I had just spent about a half hour that morning reading up on Marquette, the Big East and college basketball in general, while waiting in the doctor’s office. For some reason, I couldn’t collect any of that information from my memory, formulate an opinion on what I’d read and share it with the group.
I am also noticing a definite lack of energy in general and even typing up this blog, I find myself making grammatical errors I normally wouldn’t make. I’m also becoming a little more irritable, but I’m trying to compensate for that, knowing the true source of my discontent.
There’s a lot more (than you might wish to know), including surprising confessions such as “I’ve been wearing shorts lately.” Overall, the impression I always had of McIlvane with the Nets — that he was probably too much of a goofball to actually give a shit about basketball — remains intact. Rather likably so, I think.