I hate surprise birthday parties, everyone lying to you and then jumping out and yelling “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!” while you stand there with a Tyler Hansbrough deer-in-the-headlights expression, completely unaware that you have just been had by your closest friends and family.
I hate the surprise of getting sick. One day you are feeling perfectly perfect and then, like a freight train hitting you at full speed, your throat is raw, your eyes are scratchy and your stomach feels like it is riding the freaken’ Viper at Six Flags while the rest of your body stays put.
But then there are the pleasant surprises of life. The ones you don’t quite see coming; the ones that blindside you and leave you smiling and nodding your head in disbelief at the randomness and spontaneity of life.
Falling in love, finding the perfect song for the summer, finding a ten-dollar bill on the sidewalk, Shannon Brown.
Over the past year and a half you should have a pretty good idea of what I do around here. I try and either be as ridiculous as possible with some wild allegory or just be unabashedly absurd with grandiose verbiage and sardonic quips.
That is not what I am trying to accomplish in this edition of Section 316.
This is not about Lamar Odom’s wardrobe, nor is it about Andrew Bynum nor is it even technically about basketball in general.
This story is about me and why I have unintentionally become the most hated man in the Lakers Nation.
I fell in love with the Lakers last season. I had never experienced an 82-game season in which every contest contained an essence of the magic that would ordinarily seep to the surface only during the playoffs.
Andrew Rafner therapeutically hammers out all his issues with Andrew Bynum in hopes of a happier, more productive postseason on the third installment of the TLN Shoutbox!
Andrew Rafner brings you the first edition of TLN Shoutbox; The TLN Shoutbox is a Vidcast designed to spur enlightened Socratic discussion concerning Lakers Basketball. So, after watching, leave comments and participate in the discourse!
Section 316 is an essay series by TheLakersNation.com Writer Andrew Rafner. Andrew will explore a theme relating to the deeper world of Lakers basketball. We now present…
The Ghost
Opened up his little heart Unlocked the lock that kept it dark And read a written warning Saying ‘ Im still mourning Over ghosts that broke my heart before I met you’
- Laura Marling
It just hasn’t felt the same.
Last season, I was writing these wildly optimistic pieces about how magical it all felt.
There was something so innocent and pure about what we all witnessed last season.
I was enchanted. I was in puppy love with the Lakers for the first time in my life. I loved the emergence of Little Sash. I swooned over the homecoming of Derek Fisher. I reveled in Kobe’s Blue Period. I couldn’t stop pinching myself whenever I saw Pau in that Purple and Gold (okay, I still do that from time to time).
It seemed like the best sports fairy tale ever written: The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers were to meet in the NBA Finals.
A scenario I had only seen on worn out VHS tapes and yellowed newspapers. It all felt so right. It felt like the perfect ending to the perfect season.
Section 316 is a weekly essay series by TheLakersNation.com Writer Andrew Rafner. Andrew will explore a theme relating to the deeper world of Lakers basketball. This week’s essay…
The Anti-Hero
I have had this real big issue recently with the recent Watchmen motion picture, specifically with the way the character Rorschach has been portrayed. I am a big fan of the Graphic Novel, and in that tome it is painfully obvious to any reader that the vigilante absolutism and pessimism that resides at the core of the masked and trenchcoated anti-hero is truly vile and wicked yet inextricably missing from the film.
Puzzlingly, most of the conversations I have heard while exiting the theater seem to center around how freaking cool and badass Rorschach is.
The thing is, you aren’t supposed to think Rorschach is a “cool guy”.
He is a slob, a homophobe and most importantly he shows the utmost contempt for humankind on the whole, refusing to believe in the ultimate good in people, preferring a “we’re already damned” ethos. It is what they left out that causes people to pile out of movie theaters and glorify this monster.
Ever since Andrew Bynum went down in January against Memphis (again), I have been faced with this horrible realization: I like the Lakers better without Andrew Bynum in every way possible. This epiphany has led me to ask myself if that means I don’t like Andrew Bynum?
Have I been fooled like so many moviegoers (comic-ignorers) have been fooled by the film adaptation of Rorschach?
Section 316 is a weekly essay series by TheLakersNation.com Writer Andrew Rafner. Each Friday Andrew will explore a theme relating to the deeper world of Lakers basketball. This week’s essay…
The Ex-Girlfriend
You made a skirt from an old tablecloth,
and I hope your new boyfriend thinks its real cute,
and sometimes I wish that I could just chop off the chunk of my life that I wasted on you
- Paul Baribeau
There are two pretty distinct paths you can choose to travel during the course of a serious breakup.
You can:
A) Let them hang around and sadistically hope their life crumbles to dust before your eyes.
Or
B) Let them simply disappear, allowing for unnerving moments of overwhelming curiosity and discontent.
Granted, there are inherent flaws and variables within these two courses of action, but in reality, it is the best we have done as far as breakups go (Especially in 2009, where, like it or not, you are going to be faced with some stupid mini-feed, status update telling you some nugget of information you wish you had not seen about your scorned lover).
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I love and hate surprises.
Hi. I’m Andrew Rafner.
Opened up his little heart
I have had this real big issue recently with the recent Watchmen motion picture, specifically with the way the character Rorschach has been portrayed. I am a big fan of the Graphic Novel, and in that tome it is painfully obvious to any reader that the vigilante absolutism and pessimism that resides at the core of the masked and trenchcoated anti-hero is truly vile and wicked yet inextricably missing from the film.
You made a skirt from an old tablecloth,
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