The Vanilla Ice Version

The official re-measurement is complete but results are still pending. Without the necessary tools for the job, I had to make do in a pinch. I used chewing gum to mark the wall and then measured my vertical using my sneaker in lieu of a ruler. Unfortunately, I haven't yet measured the shoe. (Sidebar: has MacGruber rendered legitimate MacGyver references unfashionable? It feels like making the Borat voice)

Doesn't matter. Of greater concern to me is Michael Jordan's adamant assertion that he can still dunk. "Are you stupid?" was his response to Jay Leno's inquiry. He's forty years old and perma-drunk, but apparently he can dunk as easily as fall out of bed (and by bed I mean the heap of gold dubloons upon which he rests).

Is he telling the truth? Probably, but that's not the significant aspect of his claim - and of the curiousity which elicited his rebuke. Michael Jordan's physical superiority is an important touchstone on the North American cultural landscape. The scandalous profanity of Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson and, recently, Tiger Woods contradicts our desire to marginalize people according to simplified stereotypes. In this case, Michael Jordan's unparalleled atheletic ability upholds the conceit of, in the words of Larry Wilmore from The Daily Show, "The Magic Negro". Chris Rock hilariously described the response he elicited from white guys when they discovered that he couldn't play ball, a ridiculous blend of surprise and disappointment. As the godfather of dunk, Jordan's eventual decline represents an impending crisis - people are not prepared to see beyond that curtain. Our social network is too vast and interconnected; without our beloved stock characters and paradigmatic groups, we might not be able to operate at the speed and ease with which we've become accustomed. How will we identify ourselves in relation to other people?

To be capable of original, uninhibited thought on a regular basis, our imagination needs stimulation. With our limitless access to entertainment, we've become over-stimulated and now we are suffering from a kind of intellecutal dehydration. You know how some drinks, like beer or coke, can seem to quench your thirst though they actually have the opposite effect? Contemporary popular culture behaves the same. We drink it up but our body still craves the real thing. Unfortunately water can seem tasteless compared to "the real thing" - we pick up that book we got for Christmas, thumb a few pages, but eventually our interest wanes and we lunge for the remote instead. There's a satsifaction that comes with plugging in that all too closely resembles an addiction. That's why we wallow so langourously in their disgrace once we become invested in these cultural icons - to ignore them is to endure sobriety.

Maybe it's just this recent rash of hard-to-swallow Raptors losses talking, but I'm feeling a bit like a junkie who wants to get clean. I'd rather be the guy on the court than the guy on the couch. Stop that train, I want to get off.