>My
proto-feminist girlfriend was into everything girl power. At the end
of our senior year of high school the evil minds over at the NBA
thought that their product was too dynamic, too fast paced and they
wanted to offer something that sucked a little more and was less
interesting to watch. They were at the time mired in the
unrelentingly dominate Chicago Bulls lead by Michael Jordan and they
thought that was the perfect backdrop to introduce the WNBA. The 'W'
there stands for “Women’s” and if you were a fan of some
rather slow back-to-the-basket ultra fundamentally sound dribbling
leading to a layup or a set shot then you were in luck because they
had delivered on that promise. The games were excruciatingly slow and
there was a lot more 'dribbling it off of your foot out of bounds'
than you would see in the more interesting men's version. I remember
watching several games in which both teams scored less than 50
points. You are probably asking, 'If it was so bad why did you keep
watching?' That's easy, I was whupped. The oldest disease of the
smitten and like any addiction where the dealer controls the supply
the addict must at times forgo the luxuries of freedom and dignity to
ensure the supply. I would push back mildly with a couple of smart-A
cracks but there was a limit before my girl would give one of those
non-verbal or verbal signals that we had enough joking about the
gawdaffle sport we were watching if I wanted any chance at getting my
fix. I would settle in and hopefully find the sweet release of sleep
while women beset by glandular disorders tried and mostly failed, to
put the smaller than average basketball into the hoop. I watched
about 10 games that year and at one point I even bought tickets for
and traveled to and consumed that product in person. They had done a
pretty good job on the television of keeping the angles low to hide
the fact that the stadium was all but empty. We were there at the
game we watched with about four or five hundred diehards and a lot of
echos. It was even more painful to watch in person because I couldn't
go to sleep and there was no advertizing to break up the two-hour
ordeal. When it was over even my girlfriend had to admit that a
32-46 game was a little boring to watch and that cooled her jets a
little. I have not seen asingle WNBA game since that night and I am
always shocked when during the NBA finals every year they run promo's
for the league terribly juxtaposed with the highfaluting images of
the best in the world doing what they do. It always fills me with
rage and I try and call my congressmen or someone to get it off the
air because I find it offensive.
