This American Life - 25: Basketball

Broadcast on: 07 Jun 1996

The story goes like this. Recently I heard about this couple. He's in his 40s. She's in her mid 20s. And the way it was explained to me, they were having this conversation. And it was one of these conversations that if you've ever been in a couple with a big age difference, maybe you've taken part in, he was saying basically, what can you see in me? You know, you are so young and energetic and I'm this older person. I'm so much more serious. And they talked about this and talked about this. And finally she brought the conversation to a stop by declaring, no, no, no, don't you understand? I am Dennis Rodman. You are Phil Jackson. You ground me. I am wild. You make everything all right.

And that's the way it is right now in Chicago, where I speak to you from right now. Our historic championship basketball team, the Chicago Bulls, is not just the winningest team of all time with 72 regular season wins, now hurtling through the NBA playoffs. What's happened here in Chicago is that the Bulls are now the lens through which we view all of our experiences through the benchmark against we're measuring everything in our lives. They become our reality. Today in this hour, a dispatch from a city that has left the rest of the American culture and entered into its own little subculture, a basketball subculture. At nights in Chicago, now the Hancock building, which towers over the city is lit a bright bull's red bull's posters and souvenirs and caps and t-shirts are for sale in every video store and corner drug store all in bars everywhere. It's like living in China during the Cultural Revolution, slogans and propaganda everywhere all uniting us as one people. The name United Center was never more appropriate than now. There we are United, behind the Vanguard, Michael, Scotty, Dennis, Phil, Luke, our Vanguard, and all the others. Well from WB, Easy Chicago, I'm out of glass, you're listening to This American Life. And I know actually that many people who have never heard our program before around the country are hearing us for the first time today.

So a quick word of explanation. The idea of this radio show is to document what's going on around the country in these United States using all the different forms of radio storytelling that we can think of including documentary, monologues, fountages, whatever we can think of. Each week we choose a theme and our theme for this hour is basketball. Stories of people who have a basketball Jones of one sort or another. Act one of our show today. The Bulls in our hearts. Act two, Bulls in a barbershop. Act three, what basketball means. Stories of people who love the game. Act four, basketball and commerce in which among other things we visit, Bulls star Scotty Pippin's car dealership. And act five, the greatest moment in radio, ever. Stay with us. Act one, Bulls in our hearts. As a way to measure the place of the Bulls in the conscious and unconscious minds of everyday Chicagoans. Consider this case, members of the radio jury. Anahid was watching a game with their parents. They'd driven in from Detroit, the parents did, for her 26th birthday and started arguing over Dennis Rodman. Just a quick word to public radio listeners who perhaps are not following our national basketball pastime as carefully as they might. Dennis Rodman is the player who you may have seen pictures of with the colored hair, the tattoos, the piercings. He's the one who was involved with Madonna for a while, possibly the greatest rebounder of all time. Anahid's father did not like him. He's a rebel, he's a terrible man. Well, let Anahid tell the story. He said, what kind of role model is he? He's no role model. This man is the Antichrist. And I said, I don't think he's the Antichrist, dad. What developed between them was the biggest argument. Anahid has had with her parents since she was a child, since she lived at home. It lasted for an hour. And what was remarkable about it is that it got to the most basic issues any family argument can ever get to. He said, you like this craziness. You are just trying to go against everything of this family. You know that's not what we stand for. You just let you trying to go against the family. You're trying to divide yourself as much as possible from this family. By liking Dennis Rodman. All of a sudden I was back, you know, I was back in high school. All of a sudden, and, you know, he hadn't been so completely, like, I mean, the fight got to the point where he was telling me, like, I don't love him. And, you know, I'm trying to break up our relationship. He wants to have a good relationship with me. He can't even talk to me, and I don't like him,

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