GO KNICKS!

If The Knicks are a cult, waterboard me with the Kool-Aid!

Photo: Oozing into and across the street outside of Habana Outpost, Brooklyn

Like everyone in New York City at the moment, Knicks Fever has possessed me, and even I, a human staunchly ambivalent about sports, have fallen victim to the communal bliss it has brought.

Knicks Fever has presented me with the perfect example of why, after five years in a distant bucolic suburb, I’ve joyfully returned to the belly of this wily beast called New York City, content to churn about in its bile along with 8.5M other tidbits it feasts on.

The New Yorker cartoon pictured above clearly depicts those who can afford Knicks tickets during the NBA Finals. It’s also effectively a microcosm of New York City’s quality-of-life ecosystem. Most of us reside where the “You” X is, far afield of the cushy, protective ring of access, and the soul-gripping excitement that lurks inside those privileged walls.

Fortunately, New Yorkers are a resourceful bunch, and if they aren’t invited to a party, they’ll make some firecrackers, put up a screen, cop a squat, summon their friends and neighbors, and have their own.

Watching Game 3 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

The Knicks have united this city in a way I haven’t seen since darker times—a gleeful vibe permeates the ether like the stench of urine in an August subway platform. In and out of team merch, at all times of day, random strangers clock other strangers and greet them with a spirited “Go Knicks!”

In my neighborhood for Game 3, large screen projections of the game were erected at sexy date-night wine bars and onto the neighboring buildings of outdoor restaurants, and people flocked out of their apartments to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, rows thick, amicably sharing cheers, jeers, laughs, blunts, and booze.

New Yorkers know how to gather. After all, we do it every single day. The rigors of daily life here are different than anywhere else in the country. Whether you’re in the park, on the subway, on the sidewalk, grabbing coffee, in a doctor’s waiting room, or in the soundproof walls of your luxe apartment building, the collective is always in your periphery, suffering the same triumphs and travails, wants, needs, and experiences.

Mental isolation is both a survival skill and completely impossible. Once you step outside of your door, you walk with an awareness that any semblance of main character syndrome you choose to cloak yourself with is but a delusion; it’s almost impossible to stay high on your own supply when so many others are in such close proximity, breathing the same air. You are but a teeny, tiny speck of a human amid a sea of other humans. This has a profound, resounding effect on how you move through life among others.

You can be lonely anywhere and everywhere, but in New York City, as I have been reminded for the past 30 years, you are never and will never be, truly alone.

LOOK ALIVE! KNICKS IN FIVE!

xo

MF