Actually, it wasn’t exactly a bar; it was a pizza joint, but it was in a really rough neighborhood in NYC.  Actually it was in Chelsea, catty-corner the Dallas BBQ on 23rd—where all the sh*t goes down.  Actually, most violence in Chelsea involves fighting over cabs, but whatever, it was a pizza joint, and they serve beer, so I think that counts for bar fights.

Anyway, my friend and I were stopping for a few slices before catching a movie up the block.  We had been the only patrons when we’d arrived, but while ordering, a few other guys came in.  It wasn’t a big place, but there was plenty of room for everyone, so there was no reason whatsoever for this one guy to go over to the table my friend and I had chosen, and start to clear our jackets off it.  I said, “Hey, that’s my jacket,” but he ignored me, picked up my nice leather jacket (and my friend’s lesser leather jacket), tossed them toward the bench against the wall (not quite making it) and sat down at our table.  I’m really hard to get to, but that did it, the utterly needless hostility, and I started towards him.

I didn’t really have a plan (I’m not very experienced in such matters) but I was pissed and my jacket was on the floor, so I figured I’d just work it out on the fly.  And I had no f#cking idea what was going on with this guy.  He hadn’t said a word, wasn’t even looking at me; he only acknowledged my presence by rising from the table, fists at his sides.  But just as he started towards me, another guy who had come in behind him called out, “Edward, what do you think you’re doing?”  He went over to the hostile guy, unresponsive, took his arm, and, apologizing to us, led him over to a table by the window, “Come on, sit over here.”  The hostile dude, still silent, sat down and slouched over the table.

His friend picked up our jackets, brushed them off, and put them back on our table. Coming over to us, he apologized again, “I’m sorry, just a rowdy rugger who’s had too much to drink.”  Maybe it was the adrenaline still kicking, but to me it sounded like a, “be careful, you don’t want to mess with a big bad rugby player.”  And I responded stupidly, “Yeah?  I play rugby, too.”  What a dumb thing to say.  It would have been more accurate to say, “Yeah?  I played rugby, too, for two seasons, in a small college; we mostly lost.”  And the way I said it, it might as well have been, “Yeah?  Well I know karate, too.”  But it’s good that I didn’t say that, because that would have been hostile, and he might have responded with hostility.  Instead, he brightened, smiled genuinely, and said I should join their gay rugby league.  He gave it a good quick sales pitch, capped with a description of the biannual gathering, organized by the International Gay Rugby Association & Board, AKA IGRAB. “It’s just eight hundred gay ruggers from all over the world, dancing, and fun, if that’s of any interest to you.”  I said I’d check out the website.

What does this have to do with basketball and my trip across America?  Everything!  Well, maybe not.  I just started writing the title of this entry about my last seven days on the road, “Seven Days of Travel and…” and “eight hundred gay ruggers from all over the world, dancing, and fun,” just popped into my head.  It’s one of the better sentences I’ve heard.  And it’s in there permanently.  So sort of like the way some people automatically (and annoyingly) add “in bed” when reading fortune cookies’ slips of wisdom, or adding “that’s what she said” where appropriate, sometimes “eight hundred gay ruggers, dancing, and fun” just pops into my head.  Someone asks about the party, “So who’s going to be there?  What’s the plan?” and I say, “K’s coworkers, of course, some people from ZogSports, L’s Syracuse people, the little redhead N’s not getting with, but says he is, eight hundred gay ruggers from all over the world, dancing, and fun.”

So yes, this entire post is about something entirely unrelated to basketball, that came to mind while writing a title for another quick blog entry.  This is how I work.