Various Kinds of Heads

from Nov. 6-09

Folkses,

I only wish you could have seen my housekeeping zeal yesterday morning. I vacuumed AND mopped. It was incredible. I even thought of cleaning the toilets! But tell me this: do you share in my belief that sheets should probably not be washed more than once a month? I have a fairly strong hunch that to subject linens more frequently to the rigors of the washer and dryer might very well result in harming the integrity of their fabric.

Saturday nite we played Nuwaidrat. The first half wasn't pleasing to watch, as they hardly bothered missing any shots...they must have shot 75% from the field. Our goal is to keep opponents under 40%. We led at halftime 55-51 and ended up getting all 12 players into the game in a 106-90 win.

The next nite I witnessed Hameed's Manama squad barely survive a tilt with Hala. They needed help from the officials, who are always influenced by Manama's large, rabid, and very noisy crowd. One side of the gym was filled with their supporters and drums were pounding. I couldn't help but bob to the rhythmn.

Guess who was sitting right below me in the VIP section and was very disgusted with the officiating? A girl! When I first came in and sat down I noticed her near me and remarked to her, helpfully, "You can't be in here! You're a girl! Right?" She confirmed that she was. But she pointed out to me another pair of Western girls sitting in an adjacent section. She turned out to be Misty Bass, a post player who led Duke to the NCAA title about 4 years ago and just finished the WNBA season with the Chicago Sky. She was there to visit a boyfriend who plays for Hala and she will leave directly from here to a club in either China, Russia, or Spain...her agent attending to the details.

In a final attempt to be helpful I told her later that I had checked with the Name Police and found that her spelling of what should be "Missy" is unacceptable. Amazingly, she did not appear crushed. I was crushed that she was not crushed, because I had hoped to put her in her place.

Our troops had Sunday off and then bounced right back the next nite with maybe the worst practice I've ever given in my life. And this is with Manama coming up Saturday. Three guys who had played in the game sat "injured" in the bleachers, two more didn't show up, and the ones that were there weren't happy that they were there. I wasn't happy that I was there. There were a lot of unhappy people in the gym.

The next nite one of the players told me before training that most players are miffed because they haven't been paid in two months. Hussain called me in the morning and told me that Shaikh Mohammed would come to practice and assure the players that checks were in the mail. We had a pretty decent practice and he then reassured the troops. Following his little pow-wow with them the Shaikh, Hussain, Lamond and I took the next logical step: we went to a very fancy/expensive restaurant for dinner. And me in my practice shirt and shorts! Lamond showered at the gym and wore decent clothes.

The place we went to is called the Roma and is, as Hussain had assured me, a Class A joint. It was dark and a blonde lady was singing, sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish. I scanned the menu and was frightened by the prices but tried not to show it, figuring the Shaikh would pick it up (he did). All the waiters knew Mohd by name and catered to him mightily. One of them was, of course, an Indian midget and when he appeared to do something or other, the Shaikh pointed out to him that should he try and guard Lamond there (pointing at him), that it would be quite "A mismatch." That was his word and the little guy couldn't deny that he would in fact have a tough time guarding the 6-7 Lamond.

We ordered. I went with hammour (local white fish) stuffed with shrimps in some sauce ($25), a salad ($9), and later, tiramisu ($11). It was all quite good. But, wait, what's wrong?! Hussain is unable to eat his stuffed mushrooms appetizer! He's dizzy! Now he's off to the restroom! Now he's back, but still unwell! Now his entree is canceled and he has gone home! The only ray of sunshine in this sorrowful scenario is the fact that I eat most of the mushrooms. But last nite Hussain was recovered and at practice, so don't worry about him.
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Last Friday I took Coach Ozell to church with me. Remember, it was reported in the newspapers over a week ago that he was fired by his club, but since they never mentioned it to him he continued to give practices. After the service we met an American named Rick, who is involved here with making films and doing related things. One thing is to fascillitate a "Comedy Night" at a hotel each Wed. nite. We invited him to go to lunch with us. He suggested JJ's Irish Pub, singing the praises of their colossal breakfasts.

We met him there and he told us he had called Art to also join us. Art turned out to be another film maker; he's from Harlem and is interesting and amusing. While eating (I had fish and chips; quite tasty), Rick told us that he comes to this place every Sunday evening for "Quiz Nite." He made us promise to come and join his team in the competition. So after the Manama x Hala game we met up, late, with Rick to lend our skills to the effort to win coveted prizes.

We were on a team that also included 3 Brit chix and a Brit guy, and a local named Tariq who is one of Rick's comedic guys. He had explained to us earlier that the comics were mostly local or Indian or Pakistani and that some of them were kind of funny...but to remember that the bar is set lower than in other places due to this fact.

Back to the competition: I quickly proved to be an incredibly valuable team addition as, in the "Name the Song Title and Artist" phase of things (the emcee played the beginnings of two songs each from the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s) I, and I alone, was able to identify the first as "Yakety Yak," by The Coasters; and the second as "The Banana Boat Song," by Harry Belafonte. It may be true that my star faded a little through the remaining tunes...until I heard the unmistakeable intro to "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum! But can you believe it? It's not Norman! It's some stupid later re-make!

Then we went back to the quiz questions, the team's answers written on a piece of paper and turned in at the end. The emcee asked questions like, "Which mammal sleeps less per day than any other? (Giraffe, 20 minutes) And "What is the only dog who can give admissable evidence in court? (bloodhounds); and a bunch of other unimportant questions--the correct answers of which were on the tip of my tongue but never managed to quite spill out. Finally he asked an important question: "Which mammal, with over 40,000 muscles, has the most muscles in the animal kingdom?" "The elephant!" I blurted out. My teammates told me, unkindly, to stop yelling...they didn't want the teams at neighboring tables to hear the answer. Pretty unreasonable of them, if you ask me.

In the end, our team won one of the prizes, which was a Scottish tam (hat) with a blonde wig coming out its back. I admit that I was a little resentful of the Brit that took it home. I could use one of those.

Yesterday, after his team was smashed the nite before by defending league champs, Ahli, Ozell's club mustered the courage to tell him that he is no longer at the helm. But some other clubs here are interested in him so we'll see what will happen. On Sunday he and I had asked Art and his wife, who had just flown in from Holland, to join us for Thai at the Banana Leaf. They did, and his wife was a fiery redhead from Amsterdam! A nurse, she turned out to be a witty conversationalist and was pleased with me for making fun of her wooden shoes and calling her "Kaaskompf" (Cheesehead).

Remember, I once coached in Holland, and am able to make people feel at home in their native tongues. Her English, by the way, is only slightly better than mine. Nancy, our Thai waitress, has trouble with English. She had told me earlier that her cousin (flight attendant for Gulf Airlines) holds an Irish passport. Only she says, "Irlish." So I worked with her. I was able to get her to say "Ire" by itself, and "ish" by itself, but when I said "Now say Irish," she said "Irlish." I was disgusted with her and wished I knew how to call her Bananahead in Thai.

Coach Gee Pea