I’m addicted to porn, but not the moist, naked kind. Oh, I enjoy
that kind of porn, too, but I am obsessed with another variety of
illicit video.
I’ve been sneaking onto YouTube in the middle of the night so I can
replay Sonics highlights from 1996.
Go ahead, right now, type “Shawn Kemp” into YouTube, and watch his
10 greatest dunks. I promise that you’ll get aroused. Do you remember
Shawn Kemp at his greatest? Do you remember how he almost outplayed
Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the 1996 NBA finals? I think I
might write a poem, a villanelle, whose endlessly repeating question is
“Do you remember Shawn Kemp?”
A few months ago, while walking with our sons in our neighborhood,
my wife saw Shawn Kemp getting a haircut.
“You see him?” my wife said to our boys. “That guy was an incredible
ball player.”
Even if the Sonics leave us, my wife and I will keep telling the
stories about the magic and tragedy we witnessed. We’ll probably have
to rhyme “Kemp” with “hemp,” or use a pun like “unkempt,” but that’s
okay. Robert Frost knew the game: “Nothing gold can stay.” 