It’s the World Basketball Festival here in NYC. This means lots of basketball games, lots of basketball stars, and lots of basketball shoes. Everyday I read about another sneaker release that I can’t afford and another release party up in Harlem or down in Soho that I didn’t make it to. It’s been fun to see all the posters up around the city and know that it’s all going on right around me, but kind of a bummer that I haven’t been more involved in a huge festival about two of my favorite things in the world.
That changed in Thursday. I was going to meet Suzie up at NikeTown to see some installation that they have up, but as I was getting ready to leave work to meet her I started down this path of blog links to twitter posts and caught something from @FLUnlocked (Footlocker) saying that the first 5 people to take their photo in front of their 34th street store and post it to Twitter would win tickets to this big event (USA team basketball scrimmage plus a Jay-Z concert) up at Radio City Music Hall that night. The post was from 2 minutes before. I thought about it… 2 minutes. That’s not very long. I may be one of the first people to see this. But, thousands of people follow this and I’m in a city of millions… People will definitely get there before me… But… 2 minutes… Maybe not. I’m just a couple subway stops from the store… Maybe I… Maybe I could get there first. Maybe I could win?!
I literally had no work to do and I was heading out to meet Suzie anyways, but for some reason still hesitated. Right at the second Suzie called to tell me she was finished with a baby yoga class that she and Elliot had gone to and was heading up to NikeTown to meet me.
“You wanna play a game?” I asked her. She said “yeah” and I told her to meet me at the Footlocker on 34th Street and hung up the phone, grabbed my bag, and started running.
I grabbed a cab and on the way learned how to “do Twitter” so I could post my photo.
To make a short story that I’ve made long short again, I practically ran over Suzie on the street as we were both speed-walking to Footlocker, explained the game, we ran and took the picture, posted it, waited FOR-EVER (edge is soooo slow) for it to upload, and… we WON!
This was the photo that we posted on Twitter. If you want you can like totally follow me—I now have 4 “tweets.” In the next year I’ll probably double that, which is saying quite a bit since I’ve had a Twitter account for almost two years now. It’s never done me any good until NOW, though.
Anyways, while we waited to hear whether we won or not (which, as I said, we did), we headed up to NikeTown to see this:
I LOVE the branding and illustrations for this WBF. I think it is just one of the coolest, most fun campaigns I’ve seen in a while, so I’m soaking as much of it up as possible. And to see these 2D illustrations…
come to life in 3D, I just had to see.
But, before I even got to see much of the installations, I saw this:
except he looked more like this (minus the Red Bull… and I didn’t notice that gaudy championship ring either):
because it was really him! I try not to talk about basketball too too much on this blog, but it slips out from time to time. Like this time when I last talked about Rondo. He’s become a family favorite, extending out even to new-to-sports sisters like Lizzy and Sheryl who both love him (even if Lizzy always called him Radan Rojan). I love the way that he plays and I flatter myself from time to time when I think that I play like him (Although, sometimes I swear it’s the other way around because I’ve seen him pull of my signature layup before—ask Joe; it was mine first).
When I saw him, it was so sudden, like an accident, and so unexpected that I just blurted out, “Hey man” like I knew the guy—some long, lost friend. But, of course I don’t know him, I only pretend that I know him and he most certainly does not know me. So he looked at me kinda funny and went back to shopping with his friends.
I was not going to let my ONE run-in with one of my favorite basketball players fizzle like that, so I persisted… or rather waited until he turned back toward me.
Eventually—after about 15 super awkward seconds—he did and I extended my hand out and said, “Hey, I just wanted to say that I love the way y00ou play and good luck next year…” or something like that. We shook hands and I went on my way.
But get this: SUZIE stayed outside with sleeping Elliot so she didn’t get to meet him. Super sad. I went outside, though, and forced her to come back in so she could at least see that I didn’t make the whole thing up. He wasn’t like super happy to chit chat with annoying fan boys, so we didn’t pester him again. But Suzie saw him and can attest to the validity of my story.
Actually, funny side-note in regards to the story sounding true or not…
Suzie was texting Lizzy telling her all the crazy things that were happening and Lizzy wrote back: “Are you texting during a nap?” because “we won tickets through Twitter to see a USA basketball game and a Jay-Z concert and we saw Rajon Rondo at NikeTown” really does kind of sound ridiculous, right?
OK, I'm just going to post some images from the night now. This post has gone on long enough and mostly I told all the craziness that I wanted to tell. There’s just one more thing I’ll leave you with at the very end.
(we were sitting in the 3rd balcony right above #13’s head)
(Incredible drum line like out of the movie Drum Line… all hip hop with b-boys breaking and fat, wet bass lines booming through the mix)
(Dancers and stompers like out of that movie Stomp the Yard 2 and this kid that dribbled real cool like outta that real cool Nike dribbling commercial from a few years back)
(TIP!)
(Rondo… nice drive to the hoop but he missed the layup… SEE! THAT’S MY MOVE!)
(Jay Z… you can see the whole performance right here:
and here:
although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend watching it… or listening to it, I should say. It was fun to be there—the set was INCREDIBLE—and he had some really great flows, but the mix hurt and I just think, sadly perhaps, that from a pure musical appreciation point of view that the record is far superior. But, watch it just for a minute to see the set… Wow.)
Ok, last thing.
Jay ended the night with “Empire State of Mind” and I just thought it was so fitting: the incredible song about the appeal, the magic of New York City with this awesome aerial view of the city playing on the screens behind him, being performed on this dazzling stage in the beautiful Radio City Music Hall venue, after a basketball cultual celebration, after a day of running all around mid-town, chasing down free tickets, seeing stars, and really just feeling like we were right in the thick of it all… no place can you get all of that but in New York.
And to think, the day started and I just thought I was in for another slow day of work and then I’d come home and watch Elliot while Suzie went to book club to talk about Jane Eyre.
6 comments:
This post is great! I really felt like I was apart of the anticipation and the fun of being in the big city and Nike Town seeking Celebs. Why do they always have to be too cool to talk to you though? Come on you are paid millions because we like to watch you play, the least you could do is act like were boys. I saw Harrison Ford one time and we asked to take our picture with him (we were the only people there with him) and it was like we asked for million dollars. Come on.
The pictures of the basketball game—were those taken by you from your seats? Wow!
ha, thanks Ryan.
no, i didn't take those pictures. Nike did, from in front of the scorers table. We were in the 3rd balcony, so… a bit further away. The seats were still great, though.
In all fairness to Rondo, I don't think he's a terribly outgoing guy in the first place. And, I heard later, he had just arrived in town from a funeral. So…… I'll let it slide. It would have been cool if he were more talkative, but whatever.
Congrats! You guys really deserved those tickets. I like this story.
I would also like to see some pictures from baby yoga.
we don't have pictures from the actual yoga class because suzie was yoga-ing too, but we took pictures that morning that we'll post.
also, in the picture in front of the footlocker you can see elliot in yer yogi outfit—headband and all. :)
this was the best ever!
i think my favorite was when suzie was txting during 'a nap' so funny.
suzie is in a book club? what the
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