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Dear Mr. (George) Plimpton:
(Editor, "The Paris Review")

(and my dear Mrs. Maxine Hong Kingston):

As promised, in return for consideration of passing along my attached (newly finished) poem, "A Hawk from a Handsaw," (chataeu_gallaird.doc") to your Poetry Editor, Mr. Howard, I'll relate some further Tales of the Hoop…

(I've attached a "zip/Word" file, "silence.zip", which is a chapbook length collection, "The Silence of Pauses" for your perusal and publishing use-all manifestly available, as I'm in the category of "politically challenged" these days…what quaintly was once called "blacklisted" in the days of Due not Dim Process and federal "civil rights cases like "Barenblatt v. United States" …the "Sociology Professor" at Vassar, I believe, who had his teaching career destroyed for refusing to answer "Unk-ah Joe" McCarthy's "committee" questions?)

Okay, here's the scene: Harmon Gym, the University of California, Berkeley…Center Court--the matter is important as during "noontime," on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the crème de la crème show up to play hoop on the arena floor (cut into three sideways courts)…For some reason, of which we were always complaining, that time slot, with an extra hour on Friday, was the only time scheduled for basketball (we were subject to "bumping," as well, one year the "San Francisco Trolley Car Bell-Ringers Competition" took priority--I kid you not).

(I'm preparing you for one of the "real-life incidents" comprising the material for "Some Kind of Grace"…)

The competition was very fierce; often when you would ask "Who's got next?" for the center court game (lesser mortals relegated to either side), a half-dozen players have somehow got the next three "winners" all locked-up…If you "mock 'em" with "Where's your team, man? Coming in on the bus from Sacramento or what?" each would just grumble and continue to wait to pick up players from whichever team already on the court lost…

I always got picked. Like my protagonist in the short story, my specialty was shutting down the other team's hotshot. Plus I had a stellar drive to the hoop, and a three-point shot, all-one-motion…net…

Pros used to show up, especially in the summer time; none of us were impressed, however, especially with the hapless "Golden State Warriors," who we would tear up…(One day, playing with a pretty-sharp female player on my team, my five beat John Lucas and his five…and man, was he pissed off at being beat by a team with a "bee-itch," but the real sore point was that I'd shut him down and was beating him at will…)

My favorite tale from that time, though, involved "Crazy Dave." This dude had a four-foot vertical leap but hands of clay/stone. So much so, that given his habit of missing wide-open four or five foot jumpers, especially down the stretch, nobody would pick him up…(You had "one-shot" during noon, games sometimes would last forty-five minutes, so if you lost the court, you may as well head home…)

Some players would thus "compensate" for bad play by making "bad calls." Of course arguments would then ensue, sometimes, too, you'd just have to give up and head home too when one player would seize the ball after making such an outlandish call and run all over the gym, bellowing a point-of-view to which no one no longer listened…

One such day, I'd been picked up on a team that, unfortunately, included "Crazy Dave." We were down to game point either way when Dave got his hands on the ball (not really a joke was the way the most serious position play came on jostling one's own teammates out of the way for the inbound pass). Dave, all wide-eyed, dribbles down the court and faced with a double-team, steps out of bounds on the sideline. One of the defenders calls "Out!" (And he was, by at least a foot).

So here comes the argument. "What? Man, you're crazy!" Dave stands with the ball tucked under his elbow, outraged and indignant, but the other team is insistent. He looks to us for support, but he's been nailed cold, so we just kind of busy ourselves with shoelace tying, etc. Finally he says, "So that's the way it is, huh? Okay fine…"

He gives up the ball but walks off the court. Relieved we pick up another and resume play. Not more than a few minutes later, though, here come's Dave again…He strides up to the guy who made the call against him and pulls a "45" pistola from behind his back--cocked and everything--puts it up side his head and says to him, "Okay, now tell me I'mn wrong, muthafucka! C'mon, let's hear it!"

I will always remember how vigorously we all--not just the besieged player--shook our heads affirmatively, saying, "You the amn, Dave! You the man…"

As happens too often in life, however, sometimes you get called on your own shit and it don't fly no more…A few years after that incident, I heard from one of the other "noontiem regulars" that Crazy Dave had tried that stunt on a playground in downtown Oakland and his opponent had backed down, only to return with his pistola and cold-bloodedly gun Dave down in the middle of his stolen game…

Now here's the other tale. I had a very sweet girlfriend while I was at Cal, who not only got me into writing but later went to Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and greater glory at "The Miami Herald,' "The Philadelphia Inquirer" "The San Francisco Examiner" and "The Seattle Times"…

But while she was just a "cub reporter" at "The Daily Cal" (though nicknamed "Front Page Amy" ) one spring-quarter break we drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit her older sister, who'd just moved there from Chicago.

While those two were catching up on old times I managed to sneak off to the University of New Mexico and find the gym…A very large court, all cool in the spring heat, with just a few games in progress. After sizing them up, I called next on the three-on-three under one of the main court's buckets. Nobody playing even looked my way…

I pick up two other players, scouting first to make sure I got talent to go up against the very good game in progress. When it ends, one of the losers, upset, says, "Man, run it back. That was bullshit."

Wise beyond my mere 22 or so years I walk on the court, say, "I called next," and start shooting warmups. My teammates reluctantly follow.

We get hard-looks (I'm white, I got a black dude on my team, but the other teams are both all-black) but one guy--about two inches taller than my 6'4", about the same 185 lbs. as me--the best of the winners, kind of smiles and says, "Okay." To the complaining loser he says, "This'l just take a minute. Hang tight."

We start playing. My teammates aren't taken seriously and each scores a couple of easy buckets. My opponent yells at his team to "play, man! c'mon."

As they begin getting shut down they find me. A big part of my game, as power forward, was to work really hard to get open--ala "Dollar Bill" Bradley, whose "N.Y. Knicks" I watched endlessly growing up. My high-school and college coach were both big on the matter, too, so I had a good repertoire…

I'm getting the ball for that brief moment of being open and hitting my shots…We win…As the losing team had already split, my opponent says, "Run it back."

This game they win, though not due to me (I'm not letting my man score, but his teammates are beating mine).

"Rubber match" I call. They shrug, we play the third game. As in my short story (and memoir) I am ON. Hitting three poiners, the,   as my opponent come out on me, doing my drive (I don't do the "knock-kneed" type of "stutter moves" that Jordan et al favor, for my the fastest move is to swing wide, a looping semi-circle around and back towards the hoop, the first step taken then much quicker aaand givng you the advantage...)...

We tie the game, 14-all (next bucket wins). I pass the ball in, my teammmate is in trouble...but I'm streaking towards the hoop. He hits me, my opponent pushes me--hard--as I'm going up, still some six or eight feet from the hoop. As in the piece, I dift sideways, towards the out-of-bounds area, turn and on the way down put up a one-hander (pushing palm up). High arc, net...We win...

Hoots and cat-calls from the sidelines. My opponent is angry, says, "You ain't form around here, are you?"

I admit "no," begin gathering my stuff.

"He don't know who I am," he announces to the stifling-grins around me. "Well, this here gym is my court, you remember that..."

He stride off angrily, one of my teammates says, "That's Michael Cooper, he's the star here" (the player who got drafted and then played with "The Los Angeles Lakers"...)

At the Columbia gym, too, I played like a pro--the "real-life" part of blocking my opponent's shot and slam-dunking on the other end--injuring that knee that was damaged in a motorcycle (broken-leg) accident, summer of 1974)...

awaiting your feedback,

Thomas Francis Noonan, SAKYA LAMA
"Globe of Dharma Enterprises"
2124 Kittredge St. #110, Berkeley, CA 94704
voicemail: (510)-549-8828#540

DHARMA-IN-EXILE:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/8501

--"...Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
When most impeached, stands least in thy control."
              Sweet Will Shakespeare, *Sonnet 125*

--"Him do I hate who even as the gates of hell who says one thing while he hides another in his heart."
               Achilleus in Homer's *The Iliad*, Book IX

--"Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;/ For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me with a lying tongue./They compassed me about with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause./ For my love they are adversaries: *but I give myself unto prayer*./ And they have rewarded me evil for good; and hatred for my love./ Set a wicked man over [them]..."
           *Psalm of David*, 109

--"...Better than brute strength of men, or horses either,
is the wisdom that is mine..."
               Xenophanes (545B.C.) #1, trans. R. Lattimore

--'Petty people imitating others will use this in a perverse and sinister way, even getting to the point where they can destroy families and usurp countries. Without wisdom and knowledge, you cannot preserve your home with justice and cannot preserve your country with the way.'
        re: *tsung-heng-hsuen from 'The Master of Demon Valley,'
        18,19, a classic Taoist text translated by Thomas Cleary,
        'Thunder in the Sky' (Shambhala, 1993)

--"Those who fail to cultivate the inner meaning and concentrate instead on the outward expression never stop indulging in ignorance, hatred and evil while exhausting themselves to no avail. They can deceive others with postures, remain shameless before sages and vain before mortals, but they'll never escape the Wheel, much less achieve any merit."
     Ta Mo (Bodhidharma), "Breakthrough Sermon" (Red Pine trans.)

--'What is gained by tears will go by tears. In the end, goodness
Reaps many good things, though it begins with loss.'
              Gurudeva's Vedic Trikurals,Verse 659
Verse 660:

        'Protecting the country by wrongly garnered wealth
         Is like preserving water in an unbaked pot of clay.'

--"I call it praise to suffer Tyrannie"
              Sir Philip Sidney, *Astrophil and Stella*

--"And when he stumbleth striking there his foot,
Fallen on evil days, the tyrant's pride
Shall measure all the miserable length
That parts rule absolute from servitude.'
               Aeschylus, *Prometheus Bound*

--The Bhagavad Gita explains, "As a blazing fire
reduces the wood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge reduce all activity to ashes. There is nothing on earth which possesses such power to cleanse as wisdom. The perfect yogin finds this knowledge in himself by
himself in due time." Aum Namah Sivaya.

--"...principles form[ing] the bright constellation of that which has gone before us, and guided our steps..."
    Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

--"Fierce courage is what they call valor,
And Chivalry to the fallen forms its sharp edge."
         Gurudeva, Trikural Vedas, v.773

--"The intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear
witness to the misery of the world, should be provacative
by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and
open pressures and manipulations,should be the chief doubter of systems...and for this reason, an intellectual cannot fit into any role that might be assigned to him...and essentially doesn't belong anywhere: he stands out as an irritant wherever he is."
--Vaclav Havel, quoted by Alan Clements, *Aung San Suu Kyi, The Voice of Hope*
      (Seven Stories Press, 1997), p. 121

--"...We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!"
            --Padraic (Patrick Henry) Pearse (1879-1916)

--"If there is one tall pine-tree standing, the forest has not ended..."
         Olde Tibetan saying