We

My heart flows, gushing like an ocean from a cup

Tide’s always high, ‘cause your love fills me up

Awoke my third eye, when you found me

Broke down my fear, hear? You ground me

Ignite me, stoke the flame of my desire

I’d burn through salary like my calories to attest to the fire

Your passion ever lasts, my very best you inspire

And soothe these uptorn roots, boots made to walk

But I feel we in cahoots, it’s the truth when we talk

Your inner soul comes right through

Make me feel like a right fool

Tryna fake cool as you take me to school

Life’s lessons? Light blesses

Every stress with fresh reflections

Our paths joined, and point in one direction

Follow? I want to walk the earth with you

Or aim higher, I might even return with you

Eternally, when we learn our essence through and through

All the bards of legend pen their paeans to you

Hell, I wish I could bring everything to you

Thought I needed Lou Reed to come and plead on my behalf, understand

But this is PD’s deed to do, besides, Lou ain’t agreed with that plan

He said “I’ll say what you like

You know I’ll say what I can

I’ll say whatever you want

But Peter, you love Suzanne”

Indeed I do. Love chose us two, though the wind blows us too

Even when we oppose, we see it through ‘til it’s right

With time left over to get cozy and tight

I just knows I’ll doze divinely intertwined with thee every night

You rose like Lady Gwenyvere--well baby, I'm here to be your knight

And propose, you and me become we, and unite

(P.S., She said yes!)

Son of God's Son: "Made You Think"

A response to NaS' "Made You Look", cast in the original's lyrical flow

Let's shape this hook in a new direction
Take edification, a taste of correct sh--
You know I waited long to give this a retool
Slow, but still street, fool, y’all know how Pete do
Keep it clean, deep inside the beat, too
Maintain a vibe you imbibe, cool as ice cubes
Well paced, no stress
Dressed with finesse in pastel
Puff or pass to me, pal
Wife sharp as a knife, plus she's like "...mmm, POW"
Put us on the F train—F’ cars, they insane now
If we could drive through the city, like de nada
You'd see us in a hybrid Prius en la esplanada
Petro-free style, it's Pedro's freestyle
Get up your hand, child, that ya fuel your coupe with
Slurp soup with, burp your little papoose with
Same hand that you hoop with
Raise a fist, we ain’t stupid
Streetballer? Yeah I be that
You know my steez
I rain threes. "Splash!"
Ya do the 'Smurf,''Wop,' 'Baseball Bat'
That Souljaboy, that super—-naw, buck that

I mean yooooou! – Aw made you dance
Moving to a groove, put you in a trance
Getting light-headed? Breathe like it's yr last chance
Where’s them gods at? Where the truth at?

He provin'! – Aw made you think
Got thirst for knowledge, take a long drink
Getting light-headed? Life sped up, don’t blink
Where’s them gods at? Where the truth at?

This is happening, this how Pete rock
Now get up off your ass, shake the whole block
My kush cousin, spark up the trees, sir
Funk in the trunk? Get krunk if it please, girl
Don’t start none, won’t be none
No reason for you kids be trippin
Just want to see you sway your hips and
Sip $8 drinks, holla, pounds up
That’s how you pop-a-collar in this house, what
Let the music diffuse all the tension
Divine intervention, death protection
Hustlers and players stay on the grind
Lady move in time, we can grind to the tune fine
All my outta-towners, count the hours
Spend mad paper, take a bath, let it shower
Make it rain? You people so crazy
Pull out my waist, sizzurp and purple hazey

They blazing! – Aw that's just smoke
Why you front? Nature gave us the blunt, toke
Getting light-headed? Chill, boy, don’t choke
Where’s them gods at? Where the truth at?

I seen dudes puzzling, yo my mood is dark-brewed
Wire you up just like the feds do
Heads don’t snitch, now they live by a street rule
Let a stool pigeon fly the coop? Nah, they turn cruel
NaS told kids, "learn more, change the globe"
Yet this honor code kill mode, keeps it real…tragic
Whether virtual reality or the physical classic
Whatever you do, whatever you choose
Stay true to yourself, versatile too
Like a renaissance man is. Ask my friends
See they never understand this
How I manage my flow over QB standards
With just enough nastiness to top the class
Baby reach in your stash, pass the spliff
Ignite like Fela, rule the nation on a boom-bap tip
Rewrite slick, eclipse the edit like a lunatic

(Fela Kuti portrait,
courtesy of Discoid Terrorist)

It Ain't All About Me #3

summer's first sunset blessed
today's blacktop lesson beyond introspection


young bro' showed & proved
a few steps slow for our pace of competition
yet, due to unprecedented intermission
(hectic cell phone interruption)
down 5, we had a discussion.
he asked what we gotta do
i'm like "you just be you,
but talk to us on D, they ain't pickin' you
so we ain't switchin';
no help on yr man
unless you holler, unnerstand?"
glad we got a new plan,
i caught my breath


checked the evening's signs,
selected an inspiration in season
summoning jackie gleason
(in the hustler,
you know the reason)


lunacy or did it seem to me
the daydream made the tides sway
this-a-way, and when Big Ray
got off his call, 4-on-4 was recouped
I said "men, let's play some hoop."
we lost that game, then won a deuce
i considered the test's truth,
later on when i was mellow
centered on the young fellow
whose pride highs and lows flipped
the moment his man got past him, then damn
his head hang down to his hand.
Nah bring it again fam
recover quick
when you get crossed up or mixed
don't trip on top of it,
talk and claw your way back into it
that team D,
seems to me,
got a chip for the Big 3



photo: Hoopedia

Hoop Haiku #2

Halfcourt? Slick streetball legend
(in my head). Fullcourt
I hang back on D instead.

[photo by Manabe]

Pencil Stash

I play chameleon with my style, but it's your smile I'm feeling
And eyes can't spy what the soul's really seeing
Maybe they don't know a lick about the deals I believe in
Or get the inside joke on the looks I'm thieving
Baby, if I could talk a mile a minute, no mystery--stands to reason
I'd just be breathing needless b.s. into the breeze
Yet if I slow my riff, will you follow my drift
Get uplifted by the myth, or just catch a whiff of what you missed
From those smoke signal designs we weave in

(image courtesy of Anna Fleshler)

Crossover Dream #1

Retraced repeatedly just at the surface of my subconscious
A mantra of moves visualized to a tee my handles is me

On the baseline, the rock in my right hand

Scooped forth in a sly spinning bounce from the back

But mix it up from the first step: my left foot attacks,

Swings across, slices an angle in my pivot, i'm with it

Facing away from the foul line i crouch and get mine, let

Long fingers sweep a dribble low behind my feet

I don't mind if he reach, that ball's mine i can tease

Then snap it back across my front, chest-high

In a quick, tight revolution not televised

Park prime time be gone in a flash so get wise

I'm at the rim just like that, finish nice, got that

April Pools

[photo by miniluxalex]

The prohibitive mist which slicked the Carroll Park courts when I got off the subway was countered by the buoyancy of a decidedly warming humid evening. Perfect weather to get loose.

An effective enough argument that I sized up the twenty minute gap of free time I had as ample opportunity to ask the lone figure shooting around if I could join him for a few shots. When the court's wet--particularly the painted part, which in this instance is everything inside the three-point arc--the body naturally wants to take baby steps, and consequently it's hard for one to get much of a workout, let alone build a rhythm, shooting hoops alone. So assuming Shooting Stranger here was interested in getting his money's worth in court time, I wasn't just asking to play, I was offering my rebounding services. At a tremendous value, I might add.

But the point, not just my point but the point, is to build that rhythm, isn't it? The spins, the tracings of footwork.

On this particular evening, the movements invoked included slower, hypergliding shifts in direction, balanced to let the ball go just gracefully enough to not cause the shooter or passer to keel over in a slick-sneakered squall. Finger-rolls off the glass, especially the Gervin-esque, english-laden variety I usually favored, were useless against this weather; no spin intended to guide a carom off the backboard would grip the wet surface. Flatter, more basic bank shots were found far more effective. After about fifteen minutes or so, the two of us had made other such adjustments, and were into a beautiful rhythm all its own.

So when I left the court after not much longer, my body and spirit had gotten a great deal of the benefits basketball provides. Forced to focus on correct form so as not to injure ourselves, while having to use our heads and physical intelligence to employ that form in accordance with our environment, just going through the motions of a shoot-around never felt better.

For the love of...?

Last nite's basement-battle between the Knicks and Heat was far from a thrill, and despite going to OT, didn't lift me out of the ephemeral doldrums with nearly the positive effect of, say, today's Mutts.

What did elicit some interest, however, was that MSG's broadcast provided me my first chance to watch Miami guard Chris Quinn play for 40 minutes, which is oh, 30 or 35 more than I'd been accustomed to seeing in the box scores beside his name over the course of his two NBA seasons. As a few folks have noticed this morning, the Heat are knee-deep in implementing a "rebuilding" strategy that involves introducing fans to some less-than-household names. Would-be D-Leaguers, not only giving New York's finest a solid run for their money, but getting a better shot than most players in their position to demonstrate why they belong in the same rarified air as the NBA's many millionaire athletes.

Quinn had been in my radar ever since I saw him in action a little over two years ago, against Marquette at Notre Dame's Joyce Center. My empathy for his game may seem like your standard Irish-alum fanaticism, but I felt more simpatico for the fact that at just over six feet and 170 lbs (he's since bulked up to 185), I was watching a player with approximately my physical attributes with a chance to make it big.

Two years later, and Quinn's still collecting a little under $700K, and occasionally even outscoring strict gunner Ricky Davis (who makes almost exactly ten times Quinn's contract). Though it's not all about money, the difference between Quinn and Davis is not nearly as interesting to me as the difference between Quinn and say, Garry Hill-Thomas, a former Nevada standout who, after dominating various leagues in New Zealand, Venezuela and other distant shores, has returned to the vicinity in the humblest of triumphs, getting picked up by the Utah Flash of the NBDL earlier this year. 

My experience watching Hill-Thomas in action is in fact limited to summer league play; the SF Pro City games played just off the panhandle provided ample material to convince me that at a moment's notice GHT has the skills and will to take over a game. At 6'4", however, his powerful small forward approach runs into trouble matching up against the upper echelon employed in that position professionally. I believe he can conquer the odds and spend some time in the NBA, driven by the same internal fortitude which helped him lead his East Bay squad to consecutive championships, in 2004 and 2005, against Pro City's 5%NBA/50%NCAA YayArea best. I think Garry Hill-Thomas believes it too, and that's why he's been at this relentlessly the past several years, regardless of the time zone.

Will to Win

Tests of nerves. Great competitors embrace them. Memorable battles bristle with them.

Earlier this week I found myself re-reading a passage written by Bill Russell, wherein the career champion described experiences when the level of play between two teams transcended boxscores. Russell did not know when to expect such moments, nor how soon they'd evaporate, burst perhaps by an errant pass or bad call. Yet the prerequisite to each experience would invariably be that both teams engage in the high level of play, that each opponent rose to meet their foe shot for shot.

Staying up into the wee hours this week to catch glimpses of the Australian Open, I've been witness to fierce comebacks and fiercer prolonged outcomes, head-to-head struggles which have tested nerves, demanded the best from each side of the net, and summoned a distinctly transcendent aura to the court.

Earlier in the week Tathiana Garbin showed mettle in her second set against 4th seed (and currently 3rd ranked) Ana Ivanovic. Down 6-0, 4-0, Garbin grew suddenly and resolutely resistant to accepting what would seem her inevitable plight. She broke Ivanovic in a game that not only seesawed on either side of deuce, allowing the underdog to develop some semblance of momentum, but also disturbed Ivanovic's focus when the latter's request to use one of her alloted challenges on a debatable line call fell upon oddly deaf ears--with an electronic sensor failing, the chair umpire seemed too faint of backbone to make an overrule.

The transcendent play in this instance occurred in contrast to Russell's description; unnervingly bad calls threatened to burst the bubble of excellence before it even got afloat, or worse (for Ivanovic, at least), swing the momentum completely to Garbin. Nevertheless, Ivanovic's ensuing display of heart and focus was thrilling, and seemed to spring from both her opponent's steely resolve (Garbin faced 5 match points before ultimately succumbing) as well as her own refusal to focus on matters outside her field of control.

Two nights later, 2nd seed Rafael Nadal seemed to bring the entire court under his control. Down to 28th seed G. Simon, 5-2 in the first set, the charismatic Spaniard turned invincible, willing himself to fend off repeated set points en route to a 7-5 victory. The crushing tide of one-sided excellence showed no signs of abating, as Nadal cruised to a two sets-to-none, 5-3 lead. Undeterred by his Sissyphean circumstance, Simon vaunted his own lion's heart, facing 4 match points with fearlessness and clutch precision. At this time Nadal could be seen pacing the baseline. Sneering, his eye flashed the glint of a predator who's tasted blood, and isn't about to remove his teeth from the chosen prey.

Soon, a dazzling rally cut fresh angles across the court lines, drawing each man to the outer reaches of his field of play before eliciting a looping, topspin lob from Nadal that ducked deftly over Simon's head for match point. In a match where the outcome seemed inevitably headed towards Simon simply being pummeled into submission, the victorious stroke was, in fact, far more entertaining and unexpected. Accustomed to victory (so long as there are no Rogers around), Nadal's flushed grin at the net revealed a deeper appreciation for the moment.

As the man said, both sides have to play strong.

AP Photo/Rick Stevens