DEAR AMERICA:

A NATION OF MUHAMMAD ALIS THEY AIN'T

. The following eight thousand words are merely to pull you in:  

They highlight a bit about New Zealand.  Some of my VERY unusual activities there!   And briefly what I did in America and why I came to New Zealand.  Its a heartfelt, titillating and consistantly hilarious tale...  

. My book is an adventure yarn of human interest stories.  Its a small-fish out of big water!  Gulliver's Travels!  A satirical, funny, very American look at two colliding cultures...  Its a letter home.

. Basically its a fun read.  A bit of reality based escapism.  Something different - but all 100% true!

. It's Walter Mitty in the 21st Century.  Its my life...

Dear America,

It was just a weird day...

Nothing like September 11th.

September 11 goes way beyond weird.

It goes beyond words.

That fateful morning I was in a deep sleep when two piercing sounds had me bolt upright:

The thud of my eighteen month old baby boy hitting the floor after rolling out of my bed and the exceedingly shrill ringing of the phone.

I don't know about you - but to me - the phone always seems extra loud when it's bad news?  My father-in-law was on the other end and in a voice that exuded death he said I should turn on the telly.

My immediate thought was that I had to get home.  America was under attack!  I needed to be there.  Why - and exactly what I was going to do when I got there - I didn't know.  I just knew that I had this immense yearning in my gut to go home.

But I didn't.

I stayed put, hugged my family and cried.

No, this 'weird' day was now just one of those that you'd call a somewhat ordinary weird day before the world went completely bonkers.

To mark history we've got BC (Before Christ) and AD (After Death), now we can add BS (Before September 11) and AS (After September 11).  This is a BS story.

I walked out of my flat early one morning and headed up the road to get something sweet from the bakery.  I had padded down the street only a few hundred feet when I spotted him.

He was obscured by the people surrounding him, but his presence stood out like a beacon on a foggy shore.  I turned abruptly and lumbered straight towards him.  Two shadowy men in pinstriped suits wearing tiny earpieces were simultaneously reaching inside their double-breasted jackets.

I'm not a small guy, at 6'3" and 225 pounds and being completely bald I can be a bit scary.

Some publishers I knew from Random House quickly shouted out a pre-emptive "John!"  The shadowy hands reappeared empty.

Phew.

Sudden death was averted.

And there he sat.

The world's most notorious author on the lam:  Salman Rushdie.

I looked down.  Salman looked up.  There was an uncomfortable awkward silence.  It was the classic scene of I-knew-that-he-knew that-I-knew and he-knew-that-I-knew-he-knew.  I was just trying to be cool and not blurt out wildly:  "Hey, it's Salman Rushdie!"  He looked sheepish.   It was that all time haunted look that actor Richard Janssen gave so convincingly every week as Dr. Richard Kimble in that old television series 'The Fugitive'.

Finally I nodded.  Rushdie sheepishly nodded back.  I guess that makes us nodding acquaintances.  And that was it.  I nodded to everyone else and left.  My stomach was growling. 

That was just the beginning of the strangest day in my life, later that afternoon it really got wild...

= = =

Hi, how ya doing? 

My name is John Dybvig.

I'm from San Francisco. 

I'm an ex-basketball coach who one day did what a lot of people dream about.  I went down to the corner store for a pack of cigarettes and never came back.

Disappeared.

Vanished in a puff of smoke.

Only kidding... about the cigarettes.  I don't smoke.  But I did leave.

I ran off to a tropical island where my penis immediately got the better of me.  I fell dick first into your classic South Seas cliché.  I hooked up with a beautiful exotic native.  And from there it just got kinky. 

= = =

It all started on a balmy late afternoon.  January 17th to be exact 1980.  Ronald Reagan was making his entrance and I was making my exit. 

I was living in Spokane, Washington at the time and was heading for California.  Along the way I fell down my own private rabbit hole much the way Alice did. 

My Wonderland turned out to be a place way out on the edge of the planet.  A place sitting in isolation on the outer fringe of the South West Pacific.  A country that's so quiet Perry Como would have been considered loud there:  New Zealand. 

I'll give you a tip:  If you're looking for New Zealand on your globe turn it upside down. 

I just went there to coach a little ball. 

Unfortunately Bobby Knight and I could be basketball twins personality wise.  I developed acute apoplexy watching the locals butcher a simple game.  My once sane middle class American life took an oblique left into another dimension and became a side circus freak show.  I often felt like I was the lead character in a lost episode of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone forty years after it went off air. 

I left basketball and became a job junkie.  I actually became a living breathing Walter Mitty.  I got to do a lot of things that I'd only dreamt about doing as a child.   I went from the menial to the ridiculous.  I pressed wool in a wool shed and wrestled frozen lamb in a slaughter house.  

And once when I was absolutely flat broke I walked into a joint called 'The Boss Habit Control Center' and talked myself into a job.  This place had scam written all over it.  They claimed that you could successfully change your life and your future simply by changing your mind.  What?  Were they going to change everyone into a woman.  Name a phobia, any phobia and they had a program to fix it.  They could even do a Ponce de Leon number on you by slowing down the aging process.  The amazing thing to me was they had plenty of customers. 

The miracle cure for all this was something called 'Subliminal Cybernetics'.  'Brainwashing' in layman's terms.  Transmitting messages below the threshold of consciousness.  They use to do this kind of thing in the 1950's in movie theaters:  They'd flash up images of deserts that only your sub-conscious could pick up during the ad breaks and all of a sudden you'd be dying of thirst and have to make a trip to the snack stand. 

The taped cassettes we sold had a babbling brook soundtrack with the hidden Subliminal Cybernetic message underneath.  I tried to find out what the messages were but that was like trying to crack the Colonel's secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices for Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Mission Impossible. 

But the beauty of this operation was the only qualifications you needed was the ability to wear a white lab coat with authority. 

Paging Dr. Dybvig.

I've watched enough TV commericals to know that all you have to do is dress some actor in a white lab coat and all of a sudden he becomes an industrial chemist and an expert on why it's safe to shoot flyspray all over your sleeping kids.  So who was I to argue with a proven formula.

Now I know you're gonna find this a big fat surprise but, I worked at the Boss Center until one fine Monday morning I arrived at the offices and everything was missing including the managing director.

Back in the real world I got my start in the media with newspapers.  I was invited to write a weekly basketball column for the national paper's.  I got the column on the basis of being a hot shot American in the sport.  New Zealand like the rest of the world have this fickle love/hate relationship with America and Americans.  I don't know what it is, our sense of humour, our air of freedom, Disneyland or what, but our point of view on life makes us distinctly different from everyone else roaming the planet.

It's a double edged sword - on the one hand America to antipodean New Zealand is the big kid on the block.  World class.  Anything or anyone from America must be the real deal.  I went from being a small fish in a huge pond to being a whopper in a puddle.  And from there I evolved into a West Coast version of P.J. O'Rourke and penned my name to any number of zany newspaper columns.  I can literally hear my English teachers moaning and turning over in their graves.  How can this be?  That lunk-head writes for a living.

But on the flip side of the coin they also have this deep seated perception that we pilgrims are a bit too crass and vulgar, too rich, too loud and that we have no sense of ceremony.  I did nothing to dispel that belief.  Why?  Because they were green with envy that we got something they don't:  

Big Balls.

I quickly discovered while writing those columns that I had a natural talent for standing on the toes of New Zealanders.  I didn't speak English.  I spoke American.  

Technically I may be an ex-patriot.  But I take extreme exception to the term ex-pat.  I have never stopped being pat.  I am very patriotic and very American.  New Zealand has been great to me but that is largely because I have  been so true to America.  It creates friction.  And friction is interesting.  

I was blunt, to the point and took NO prisoners.

For example:  During the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics future world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield was disqualified for hitting New Zealand boxer Kevin Barry after the bell.

At least that's the way the judges saw it and we all know how corrupt Olympic boxing judges are.

Just ask Roy Jones.

Kevin Barry took home the silver medal by default.  Holyfield's punch, late or not, had knocked him out (actually it knocked him into another universe) and under Olympic rules he couldn't fight in the final.

All of New Zealand was jumping for joy over this historic win.

Me, I felt like puking.  Barry didn't belong in the same ring with Holyfield.

I gave the country a little zing in my column pointing out that all of the Kiwi competitors who won medals for New Zealand did so while sitting on their asses:  Equestian, yachting, rowing and even their stalwart boxer Kevin Barry.

Well, that column/pun certainly hit a nerve.

I was invited to step outside by any number of patriotic young Kiwis who were keen to put me on my ass.  Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword was lying.

New Zealander's are called Kiwis after their national bird, a flightless nocturnal creature.  The Kiwi can't fly, can't see and is nearly extinct.  Give me the majestic Eagle any day.

I was on a roll with this 'media thing' as I bluffed my way into television and radio.  I was the only American in the country hosting national programs.  I was in their living rooms in living color.   I was right in their faces BIG TIME.  I was an American billboard in a very, very strange land.

They couldn't avoid me even if they wanted to.

The main criticism I heard from the public had to do with the size of my 'huge ego'.  They thought this was a crime against nature and that I should be embarrassed about it:

"Listen, mate, I'm sorry, but you like yourself a bit, don't you?"

"No.  Not a bit.  A LOT!"

"Well, it's just, you know, I'm sorry, I like your broadcasts, but I don't like you."

"That's cool.  I like myself enough for the both of us.  And buddy, don't apologise.  It's not your fault."

"Are you having a go at me, mate?  You want to step outside?"

"Nah, thanks anyway."

That's the most popular way of solving problems in New Zealand; 'stepping outside'.

This is a man's country, where men are men and the sheep are nervous.

It's also the world's politest country.

They're forever giving you a pre-apology and thanking you.  If you step on their toes their immediate response is:  "Sorry."   And buying anything in a New Zealand store is an exercise in who can 'out thank' whom.  It goes something along these lines: 

Customer:  "I'll have a dozen eggs, thank you."

Store clerk:  "Thank you."

Customer:  "... and a loaf of bread, thanks"

Store clerk:  "Thank you."

Customer:  "Thank you."

Store clerk:  "That'll be $4.85 thanks."

Customer:  (hands over money)  "...ta."  (NZ babytalk for 'Thank you'!?!)

Store clerk:  "Thank you."

Store clerk:  (hands back change) "Thank you."

Customer:  "Thanks."

Store clerk:  "Thank you."

There's nothing wrong in being polite, but hey, come on, let's move it along here, I've gotta life to live.

Here's another tip:  Patience is a virtue in New Zealand.

Everytime I witness this little scene I'm reminded of the time I took my lovely New Zealand wife to the States.  Of course I took her only to the best places...

So there we were standing at the Jack-in-the-Box counter ordering lunch. 

My wife Jennifer hadn't yet come to grips with the term 'fast-food'.  She was intently studying the menu on the wall like there's no tomorrow and on top of that she was asking pointed questions about how the food was cooked.  Finally in total exasperation a hulking construction worker looming behind her shouted:

"Alright, already!  Come on lady, what're doin' memorising the menu?"

Jennifer slowly turned around to face Goliath (she only stands 5'3") looking up and with just the hint of a raised eyebrow and in her delightfully cultured New Zealand accent she politely admonished him:

“I’m sorry, but its my turn.  Please wait for your turn.”

The big guy was dumbfounded.

Of course I didn’t escape her wrath all together either.  My all time favourite burger is Burger King’s Double Beef Wopper.  One day halfway through a freshly made, big juicy one with just a trace of mayonnaise, ketchup and tomato juice running down my chin, she gave me 'the look’.

“What?”

“Its all about ‘hamburger’ here isn’t it?”

“You betcha” I chomped.  “At least our burgers aren’t purple.”

New Zealanders insist on putting beetroot in their burgers turning the whole gooey mess purple.  How bizarre.

Jennifer wasn’t a total snob when it came to California food, she got hooked big-time on Cadillac Margarita’s, Buffalo Wings and deep-fried Mozzarella sticks.

Weight Watchers anyone?

When you live abroad it’s the little things you take for granted that you miss.  Whenever I come home I’m instantly reminded of how casual and loose the mood can be in California.  Easy.  New Zealand's rhythm is a lot stiffer.  More formal.  Definitely not jockular.  They don’t do ‘grab ass’ there.

= = =

Back in the land of nod my work adventures had taken on even more unusual twists if that were possible.  I caught the lead surfboard in the wrestlemania wave sweeping the world.

I actually morphed into a Jesse 'The Body' Ventura clone and became a big time wrestling commentator:

"Wop!  It's a smack to the kisser followed by an Inverted Atomic Drop.  I tell ya in this game it's punish and win.  If you're outgunned you can always even things up with a good poke to the eyes.  Yes!  It's the Big Belly Suplex with a Flying Knee."

I even got creative and came up with my own moves.  I invented the 'Reverse Sunset Flip - with a shoulder crank'.  I'm the author of the San Berdoo Butt Drop.  And the coiner of the Bigbelly Flapback.  Not a lot of people can say that.  Most likely not a lot of people would wanna say that.

The drill is the same the world over.  Except in New Zealand they got inexpensive wrestlers.  Wal-Mart specials… They didn't get the 'Rock' they got 'Bulldog Bob Brown'.  Bulldog may have been a real warrior back in the days of Tyrannosaurus Rex (the dinosaur not the band), but by the time they found him his body had already lost the battle with gravity:

What once may have been muscles now hung in overlapping folds from scrawny shoulders, like drapes over old theater curtains.  His gluteus maximi had so given up the ghost that it looked like he'd taken a dump in his trunks.  His bare legs were a blaze of purple and red with varicose veins and ruptured capillaires. 

Bulldog was not a pretty sight.  However a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do and seeing as I was the expert wrestling commentator for this pathic scene I put on my best Jesse 'The Body' Ventura sneer and exclaimed:

"Look at those rippling shoulder muscles.  This gladiator is some athlete."

The weird thing is physically I could be Ventura's twin.  Maybe I could be Jesse's body double in his next movie.

I've got experience.

Hunter S. Thompson once said:  "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

I never knew what that meant until I ended up in the place where suspension-of-disbelief is king.

Yes.  I became an actor (You talking to me?)

= = =

I was 42 when I characteristically barged into this narcissistic world.  Previously I was a Neanderthal jock, dragging my knuckles on the ground. 

Macho was in, emotional displays were out, especially hugging other men. 

Strange men with high voices, yuck!

It took me a while to warm to the idea, but now I'm a regular huggaholic:  Baby, sweetie, love your work.  Hug.  Hug.  Hug.  That's it though, pressing myself fully clothed against another hairy human is as far as I want to venture.

In my first major role I had to do a reversal and actually come out of the heterosexual closet.  Everything is ass backwards in New Zealand, yes the water does funnel in the opposite direction (counter-clockwise) down the bathtub drain.

I was playing the American hard-ass in a New Zealand mini-series called "Fallout".  In 1984 the New Zealand Labour Government (Democrats) passed an anti-nuclear bill officially making this blip in the ocean a nuclear free dot. 

This meant that U.S. war ships could no longer dock in New Zealand ports because the United States has this 'neither confirm nor deny' policy when it comes to whether or not our ships are nuclear armed.  Consequently all military ties between the two country's were severed.

What?  You didn't notice.

I played the role of Richard Armitage, a Vietnam veteran who was then the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.  Today he's the Assistant Secretary of State.

My first day on the set was hetic.  Every other scene required me to change into another costume.  I would literally be undressing as I ran to wardrobe.

During one quick change one of the sweet and I mean sweet young wardrobe boys was down on one knee putting my shoes on when my pants dropped down around my ankles.

Well, this budding Rock Hudson could barely contain himself, he looked up wide eyed inches from my package and squealed: 

 "Oooooooooooh."

Remember this was my first acting role.  I hastily pulled up my pants and barked in my lowest meanest Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator voice:  "Listen Mac, I may be from San Francisco and I may be an actor, but I walk on the right side of the street.  Got it."  Me paranoid?  Never.  Me homophobic?  Not on your life.  Oh yeah. 

Then, and only God knows why, I became an American accent coach.  I deliberately learned the craft of making foreigners sound like you and me, kind of like that movie 'The Stepford Wives' only in this case it'd be 'The Stepford Voices'.  And believe me that's no mean feat getting an entire race with a two-by-four stuck up their ass to sound like John Wayne.

"Gawd willin' and the river don't rise, Pilgrim."

Now that's weird and I'm a pro.  The funny thing is when I lived in the States I didn't have this inane urge to be a media slut.  I was a lot more one dimensional.  I was just a struggling assistant basketball coach trying to establish a career.   Granted I had the personality of Godzilla smashing Tokyo.  But who's asking?

I was a basketball slut.  Basketball and basketball alone ruled my universe.  I was born and raised in California.  I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area during the sixties.  Need I say more? 

The Grateful Dead, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and The Doors, the explosion of the drug culture and Mario Savio challenging the then Governor of California, Ronald Reagan about freedom of speech at the University of California at Berkeley. 

Student demonstrations, the Vietnam protests, the Kent State murders and Armstrong walking on the moon (Did he really do it?).  Those were exciting times. 

I lived in the same apartment complex as Associate Professor Angela Davis.  At the time she was under investigation by the FBI for being a Communist while teaching at Cal Berkeley. 

Reds under the beds. 

Ronald Reagan's obsession.

I went to hear Professor Harry Edwards speak. 

He being the black social conscience of the time influencing sprinters John Carlos and Tommy Smith to raise their black gloved fists in defiance on the victory dias during the 1968 Olympics. 

I grew up firsthand in this whirlwind of social angst, but it all just sorta slipped by without me really noticing, like watching a baseball game at Candlestick Park slowly getting fogged out.  My entire world revolved around hoops. 

I already knew where I was heading - from the age of fourteen everything I did was predicated on being a basketball coach.  I went through high school and college not necessarily to get an education but to play roundball. 

I was not a gifted athlete.  Michael Jordan and I didn't come from the same gene pool.  The only time I ever held any records was at De Anza, a two year California community college.  I enrolled there in 1967 the day it opened it's doors for the very first time and became a member of the initial De Anza College basketball team. 

The entire enrollment at the college in those days was just under two thousand pupils.  Today the enrollment tops forty-five thousand students.  The coach in those early years must of had halitosis or something because nobody returned the next year except me.  That made me the school's very first two year player. 

And that's why for a very brief stint I held every basketball record at the college. 

The record book looked like this:

Most points scored in De Anza history..........me.

Most rebounds.............................................me.

Most games played......................................me.

Most assists.................................................me.

Most everything...........................................me.

Mr. Most.....................................................John T. Dybvig

De Anza College

1967 - 1969

I had a ton of fun being involved in the game.  Basketball got me through school, it got me interesting jobs and it got me around the world.  In fact basketball got me my only high school honor.  I never wanted to miss school because I was always playing, so in four years I had racked up a perfect attendance record.  When I graduated I received a certificate at the ceremonies.  I didn't even know.  My reaction was, 'Huh?'

I had some hell raising times playing college ball.  My first year at De Anza we finished fourth in the league.  However the first three teams got caught cheating so we got to go to the State Championships in Los Angeles.

Our first round opponents were Pasadena City College coached by the infamous Jerry 'Tark the Shark' Tarkanian.  Jerry's team featured two future pro players:  6'9" George Trapp and 6'10" Sam Robinson.  I had no way knowing at the time but I would meet Tarkanian again 20 years later in New Zealand...

They simply had an awesome team, so much so Sports Illustrated carried a story on our game and quoted our coach as saying:  "I just hope they don't kill us."

Tarks machine as the team was labeled by the press was made up entirely of big muscular black studs from the city who played their game in the stratisophere way above the rim.

Our team was composed of all white guys who really couldn't jump.

We were warming up when suddenly all hell broke loose.

Pasadena's monster men exploded onto the hardwood to the beat of an all drum band.  They put on a dazzling show propelling themselves time and again miles above the basket slamming the ball with enormous force on the way down.

The whole building seemed to shake with each slam dunk.

This was purely magical for me, a white suburban kid who rarely had any contact with blacks in any shape or form.  We stopped our puny acrobatics and stood there transfixed mouths agape ooohing and awwwwing along with the crowd.

Our coach wasn't impressed.  He stomped onto the court and scolded us like naughty school kids caught with our hands in the cookie jar.  Killjoy!

George Trapp's opening shot summed up the entire game.  It was a fifteen foot baseline jumper.  He towered over me by about a mile, but I was enthusiastic.  I was all over him like a bad rash, he was mine, I owned him, I had him locked down.  The shot was nothing but net.  I honestly don't think George even knew I was there.  On his follow-through his elbow came crashing down into my forehead like a run away elevator car plummeting from the 75th floor.  I saw stars.  The ref whistled a foul on me.  We didn't win. 

I graduated from De Anza and moved to Modesto, California where another George had made an impression.  Modesto was the setting for George Lucas' movie 'American Grafitti'. 

I was still pursuing my hoop dream. 

The atttraction for me was Stanislaus State my next basketball port of call.  The basketball program there didn't quite match the movie budget.  We'd drive all the way to Los Angeles, play, grab a quick bite to eat and then drive straight back to the school. 

Our road trips were 24 hour open all night affairs.  Thousand mile car rides (drive-a-thons) with a basketball game thrown in. 

My most memorable game at Stanislaus was against the United States Army team.  Before the game the Army coach, Hal Fisher, had a quiet word with us. 

"My boys are playing for spots on the U.S. Army team.  That means they make the squad and their army career consists of touring the world shooting baskets.  They miss the cut and well, they're career quickly changes to touring the world peeling spuds and dodging bullets."

We all looked at each other somberely.

"Gentlemen, prepare yourselves for a physical game."

The word 'physical' was woefully inadquate for the onslaught that took place.  It was all out war.  Hamburger Hill, Battle of the Bulge, Gettysburg, every single inch of the court became a battlefield. 

I had bruises on my bruises on my bruises.  I began my career at Stanislaus playing guard, but an injury to our center meant that once again I was battling the Goliaths under the basket. 

Being a midget center meant that I had to come up with something unique to get my shot off over the skyscrapers towering over me.  I came up with the 'sudden no look slam hook'. 

But.  Doesn't there always seem to be a but?

The Army's center was another 6'9" giant destined for the pros. Larry Kennyon, this gazelle was a nosebleeder, a skywalker, a lightbulb changer... the man could fly.

Naturally that didn't bother this naiive, suburban white kid, I went right at him, as I unleashed my deadly guided missle Larry blasted up into the air with so much power he actually outjumped my shot and the ball got stuck in his armpit.

The referee called goaltending.

"Yes!"  I screamed.  I got cocky.

Unforunately for some fan sitting in the sixteenth row my next hook left a deep imprint of Spalding on his face.  It was all down hill from there, the Army boys opened up a big ole can of whup-ass and whupped our asses.

When my playing days ended I finally fulfilled my destiny and moved over to the sidelines.  Fast and furious would be the only way to describe my coaching career.

I started a riot at one school and tried to commit polar suicide at another.  The riot wasn't my fault, I swear.  I was working at Santa Clara University and our arch rivals USF (University of San Francisco) were the number one ranked team in the United States. They had four players from that team go on to the pro ranks.  The best was their seven foot center Bill Cartwright who went on to play with Michael Jordan and the world champion Chicago Bulls.

We had our own weapons including the rugged Kurt Rambis who went on to star with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson on several Los Angeles Laker NBA championship teams.  The game was an absolute barnburner.

Bucket for bucket inside an immense cauldron of noise.  Everyone was wound up tight as a drum as the game dwindled down to the final six seconds.  Kurt Rambis was shooting a freethrow with us up by one.  Naturally he missed.

Seven foot Cartwright gobbled up the errant shot and fired an outlet pass to Chubby Cox, who frantically streaked down the sideline and burped up a twenty-five foot prayer at the buzzer. 

Nothing but net. 

The stadium erupted into absolute pandimonium. 

I looked around as the scene dissolved into slow motion:  USF jumping for joy, our players with downward drawn sunken faces, the coaches striding towards each other with outstretched hands. 

It was an instant nightmare for us. 

The crushing weight of a near great upset snatched away in the last possible moment. 

Ouch. 

Double ouch. 

Out of this unfolding landscape I saw the referees gliding toward their locker room.  Simultaneously I sensed a flinch from one of our assistant coaches. 

Then one day I found myself driving to Spokane, Washington to be the head assistant basketball coach at Gonzaga University. 

Hey, I know it sounds like a venereal disease, but it's not only the home of Bing Crosby, it was also the launching pad for Utah Jazz great John Stockton. 

John was just this little stick of a kid at Gonzaga Prep then.  I used to eat huge ham sandwiches and drink schooners of beer at his father's place, the Bulldog Tavern right across from the school.  John was always in the joint and I gotta confess not once did I ever look at him and think:  "NBA legend."

I had never heard of Spokane or Gonzaga for that matter nor did I have the foggiest notion as to where they were located when I accepted the position.  It simply didn't matter.  They could have been on Mars for all I cared.  I was moving up the basketball coaching ladder. 

I hit town wearing a California tan and sunglasses.  I should have worn a snowsuit...  A Himalayan snowsuit. 

The place was one gigantic ice-block, twenty-six below.  This was definitely not life as I knew it.  I was your typical Californian-living-in-the-snow-for-the-first-time-in-his-life. 

I just ignored my surroundings.   I pretended that the snow and ice didn't exsist.  I walked around in my normal clothes shivering to death. 

The outdoor facuet in my garage had a tiny drip.  Big deal, right?  What harm is a little drip gonna cause. 

That tweeny weeny trickle turned into a shallow puddle which evolved into a small pond which froze solid and slowly but surely like a moving glacier it tore my immense garage door right off it's hinges. 

I discovered this one morning while in my kitchen sipping coffee.  I heard this almighty agonising wrenching sound followed by a loud crash.  "What the hell was that?"  I rushed outside in a light breezy shirt and stood there freezing in disbelief. 

And the thing about all this frozen landscape was you couldn't escape.  In San Francisco I'd drive up to Lake Tahoe fool around a bit in the snow and then get the hell outta there. 

In this neighborhood it seemed to get colder and bleaker no matter where you went.  Especially if you went to Montana. 

One sub-artic night in Big Sky Country I almost became a permanent member of the ice-age. 

We had a double-header weekend against the University of Montana in Missoula and Montana State in Bozeman. 

We checked into our Holiday Inn and then drove over to Adams Fieldhouse for shooting practice.  When we finished the head coach sent the players back in the van. 

He looked at me and casually said: 

"Let's jog back." 

I questioned the logic of running in what seemed to me to be outer Siberia. He quipped that it wasn't a problem, and for him it wasn't. He was bundled up in a hat, gloves, thermal underwear and enough artic gear to the point where I thought I was jogging with the Michelin Tire man.

Me?   All I had on was a skimpy tee-shirt, a pair of thin cotton sweatpants with nothing on underneath (not even underwear) and tennis shoes (no socks, California style).  But he gave me that don't be a wimp look so I shot back:  "Sure.  Why not?  Let's go."

What a dumb move.  Big time!

We stepped out of that nice warm cosy stadium into the outer limits.  The night was extremely still, eerie, like it had a life of it's own.

When it's several hundred degrees below zero it takes the cold a while to sneak up on you.  But, when it does get there, you know it. 

Suddenly I felt this body hugging glacier incasing me in my own sweat.  It got to the point where I almost froze in mid-stride.  And to top it all off... we got lost...

Finally we stumbled into a small cafe to ask for directions, the Michelin Tire Man and his naked sidekick Stupid Boy.  Our presence in that cafe created this amazing video effect.

You used to see it on Star Trek where everybody freezes in their tracks except Captain Kirk.

The Waitress swung around with a pot of hot coffee in her hand, looked directly at us dropped her jaw and froze.  All the customers looked up and froze.  Some old codger was lifting a cup to his lips and I swear even the steam from his hot coffee stopped rising.

I usually love freaking people out like that, but I was way to cold to enjoy their shock.

I was in shock.

Somebody eventually hit the start button and we got our directions and trudged off crunching in the snow.  I don't know if I was hallucinating or not but at this point I was starting to feel a kinship with Alaska's Iditarod huskys.

And then I saw it:  The elixer of life.  I have never ever been so ecstatic as when I saw the yellow and pink neon glow of our Holiday Inn sign in the distance.

Once inside the warmth of my room I felt nauseous.  My balls had completely disappeared.  Those baby's were gone.  I think they were up near my Adams Apple.

The university's trainer marched in, called me a stupid jackass and then the nice man applied hot towels to where my balls use to be in an attempt to coax them back home.

AAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

As we continued our trek over the horizonless frozen tundra to play Montana State I was beginning to feel like Nanook of the North.

It was forty below in Bozeman.

The odometer in our van began making a high pitched squealing sound and then it suddenly snapped.  Bang!

A bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken a player had left in the back of the van was frozen solid.

Nothing was normal here not even the basketball stadium.  Montana State is the home of the NCAA Rodeo.

The 'Marlboro Man' would ride very tall in Bozeman.

The basketball court sits elevated in an enormous rodeo ring, two feet above the dust and dirt and the cow poop.  Anchored to the end of the court were mammoth Bhrama Bull shoots.

The parking lot was full.

Seven thousand Chevy pick-up trucks, all with gun racks.  The stands were packed with ten thousand white people all wearing cowboy boots, cowboy hats and one bulging cheek.  I have never in my life contemplated chewing tobacco, but I felt like it that night. 

When the game finished I elected to travel back to the hotel with the team. 

When I got back to Spokane I got the telephone call children dread.  My father had died suddenly of a massive heart attack.

We had never been close but as luck or fate would have it in the last year of his life I had finally gotten to know him a bit better.  I was looking forward to the summer and what it held in store for us as father and son.

Instead I went home two months early to bury him.

My once ordered existence now seemed very vague.  All of a sudden being a basketball coach just didn't seem that important to me.  

My father's death had thrown me into a tailspin.  

I found myself in such a different head space that I didn't know how to handle it.  So I didn't.  

I stayed in California having tossed in my coaching position and moped around.  

Eventually I took a job working the graveyard shift at a 7-11.  If nothing else it was different.  

The creepy crawly hours of the night brought out every odd ball going, there were moments when the store looked like an audition for Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video.  

However one stone cold quiet night at 3:00am the phone went 'jing'!

I jumped three feet in the air.  

I picked up the receiver and listened to a sexy woman's voice on the other end asking me detailed questions:

"Do you work there sir?"

"Huh?"

"Can you please describe for me what your wearing?"

"Huh?"

Brilliant phone conversation on my part.

The mysterious sexy voice turned out to be a dispatch officer for the local police department.  Apparently the shop's silent alarm had been triggered.  I looked up and had one of those sudden involuntary intakes of breath. 

Two Robo-Cops were aiming the biggest, meanest looking tubes of metal (shotguns) I had ever seen directly at me.  Every synapse in my body shut down.  Dead Clerk standing. 

I was ordered not to move.  No problem.

Everybody seemed to relax to the point of false ease once it was established that I was the official employee.  I still had heavy skid marks.

Funnily enough that potential brush with death didn't scare me off. It took a very innocent chance meeting to do that.

Early one morning I was working overtime when the mailman skipped in to drop off the mail.  Mr. 'Happy as Larry' recognised me from the local high school championship basketball team I played on.  We shot the breeze about what singer Bruce Springsteen calls:  "The Glory Days."

Finally he chirped something about the mail must go through.

He was almost out the door when he snuck a quick glance back and our eyes locked for the briefest of seconds.  I felt small.  The mailman was embarrassed.

His look sadly winced:  "Your star once shone brightly and now at 30 you're clerking in a 7-11."

That's the exact moment I went out for those 'cigarettes'.

= = =

Besides I was bored stupid.  I needed to get back after it.  I needed some challenges.  Wasn't it some Greek or was it Groucho who said:  "Be careful of what you wish for - you just might get it."  Did somebody mention challenges?  I got 'em in Spades.  A friend of mine had dangled the carrot of coaching in a foreign country.  He had the contacts.  But it was the mailman who did it.  His look was the catalyst that had finally sprung me into action. 

I couldn't have picked a better time to arrive in the 'Land of the Long White Cloud' than early January.

New Zealand is steamy and hot and filled with brilliant blue sky's. It's very tropical.  That's because it's the middle of summer.

The seasons are the exact opposite to the United States.

Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas' isn't a big seller at the bottom end of the world.  Instead of 'Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh', or 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire', Kiwis are busy slapping on copious amounts of suntan oil down at the beach in sweltering one hundred plus degree heat on Christmas day.

That's where I spotted her.

She was a tall, lithe, sweet young thing, brown as a nut with a body that ached to get undressed.  Little did I know that I was about to enter Dante's Inferno.  

A writer and aficionado of the theatre, she was strong-willed and fiery and bent to no one.

She was French-Samoan.  Any time you went anywhere with her, you came in for special attention simply because you were with this person granted the extra grace of physical beauty.

But something wasn't quite right.

During our entire relationship the only time we connected - I mean really connected - was when we were naked.

After our first love making session I looked like I had wrestled a cactus.  That's what they were, sessions.  Workouts.  We went after each other like two alley cats in a bag.  But, in the real world fully clothed as George exclaimed in an episode of Seinfield, we lived in 'Colliding World's'.

We were both moody and selfish and drawn to each other's darker aspects.  It was a fatal attraction and I knew this and yet I couldn't stop myself.  I don't do drugs but I was definitely addicted to this Polynesian beauty.  Hook, line and sinker.

We took an apartment in the city and worked as flunkeys in restaurants.  It was dream stuff.  The jobs were just interruptions - real life was our apartment and bedroom.  We indulged ourselves in mainline, overdose emotions there.  A couple of passion junkies racing home for another fix.

At first the emotion was all on the up side of the scale.  Love, sex, kindness.  But soon enough we needed to spice it from the down side.  Anger, sex, hurt.  And the balance started to change.

After a while it didn't seem to matter whether the fix was pain or pleasure as long as the trip was passion.  But the hurtfulness got stronger because it was easier to induce.  We began to argue about everything and our fights were becoming famous.

We decided to split.  Chronic withdrawal.  I'd wake up dreaming about her hair.  All kinds of shit would remind me of her: half-empty wine bottles; a book page with its corner folded down; the cool underside of a pillow. 

The separation didn't last. 

We got hooked again. 

Living apart, but conducting a guerilla love affair.  We'd whip each other into screaming, angry, emotional ecstasy and pay it off with love making. 

Our fights became legendary.  At a friend's wedding, a celebrity-infested event, she saw me in close conversation with a well-known blues singer.  She careened across the grass and knocked her down with one punch.  One of my friends thought that this was just awesome. 

I didn't share his enthusiasm. 

We'd stay away from each other for weeks and then one would turn up at the other's door in the middle of the night.  Search and destroy missions.  I told her I hated her and bought her a diamond ring.  She told me she loved me and sold it. 

It was getting dangerous. 

You never knew what was real and what was a tactic.  My life had refined down to two speeds:  hysterical, high-pitched emotion; or dreary melancholy. 

Finally I called it off for sure and certain. 

Wouldn't answer her calls. 

Stayed away from home. 

Cold turkey. 

She stopped calling and took up with another dreamer.  We didn't see each other for a couple of months.  Then one night I went to catch a basketball game. 

There she was sitting in the champagne and pate zone.  She was with her new beau, a hulking 6'8" monster.  All the cold turkey had been for nothing.  She called me a bastard and a shithead.  I called her a bitch and an asshole. 

Her new love interest didn't like it at all.  He loomed up large and grabbed me by the shoulders and started to push.  I grabbed him by his shoulders and shoved back.  Tables and chairs and wheels of Brie and champagne buckets hit the floor. 

We locked horns and bulled each other all over the place like a couple of rutting stags.  Cleared a big circle.  She waltzed around us trying to get a shot at me with her handbag and screaming insults.  I know you've seen this scene a million times at the movies.  Ugly mating ritual.  She found a cup of hot coffee and threw it in my face. 

The security guards arrived, broke it up and escorted all of us from the building.  They went their way and I went mine.  As I drove off it just suddenly hit me:  The cold, grey weight had gone.  Just lifted up and out of me.  Like I'd been through an exorcism.  The two-tone life I'd been living was over.  I wasn't angry and I wasn't miserable:  I was clear. 

The next day a friend of mine called and asked if I was upset about last night's events?  I told him I felt great!  Like a prisoner who'd served his hard time, a lifer given a reprive.  I'd just walked out of jail and the sun was shining.  Yesiree, I certainly started out with a bang so let's see what else New Zealand had to offer...  

TO BE CONTINUED.

The following are further chapter topics with a brief synopsis:

WALTER MITTY IS ALIVE AND WELL:  An overall sketch of New Zealand and my sudden rise to being one of the country's most controversial citizens.

WHITE MEN DON'T HAVE TO JUMP:  1950's style barnstorming across the land with a troupe of 25 foreign wacko's came down to plenty of booze, sex and some very strange games on and off the court.

BASEBALL ON VALIUM:  Babe Ruth couldn't play this game. There are no hotdogs in cricket.

TWO ENDS OF A SHEEP:  Pressing wool, flying frozen lamb and discovering that a killer left jab is far more important in the slaughter house than a killer crossover.

GUERILLA LOVE:  I told her I hated her and bought her a diamond ring. She told me she loved me and sold it.

FRED FLINTSTONE TYPES:  Chipping words out of stone.

NEANDERTHAL MAN:  The world's meanest game played by the world's ugliest people.

MARCEL MARCEAU DOES RADIO:  Conversations with an alien. Celebrity's here would rather French kiss a skunk than say a whole intelligible sentence on air.

EGO RIDERS IN THE SKY:  Ego monster is a sneaky son-of-a-bitch. It's all about me...isn't it? 

STONED:  Pirates and rock gardens in the belly.

MICROPHONES UP MY NOSE:  The New Zealand chat show...definitely not Jerry Springer territory.

SUNSET FLIP:  Big time pro wrestling on a shoestring budget. How ugly can it get?  Very.

WUDYASAY:  English as a foreign language.

LUV YA BABE GOTTA GO:  Life on the celebrity trail.

SLEEPING WITH SHAKESPEARE:  This ain't Hollywood.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS:  The monk and the strawberry.

IF YOU'RE AN AGENT OR A PUBLISHER AND THIS MATERIAL LOOKS PROMISING PLEASE CONTACT ME AT: 

jd@johndybvig.com

Home

Student Notes | Metro Article | AA4A | Contact  |  The Pitch  |  CV & Bio