The Doom Machine (1/28): MELO62 & The Guano War

I recently wrote about the effects of the digital age on history. Yeah, I write a lot using the same platform I constantly question (questioning is not necessarily bashing, by the way). Sometimes I wonder if sharing my writing, or whatever you want to call this, would be possible without the ease of sharing our present age gifts us. Things that come with ease are in a sense controversial because we are raised on a meritocratic system that places a higher value on the ever changing concept of hard work. Improvements can be made on whatever your craft is and most people attempt to make these improvements; complacency is looked down upon by almost every Contributing Member of Society (capped it for that special lot). But sometimes you just do something you have done a hundred times before so well that you MELO62.

If Mike Breen calls your team's games you can't possibly get tired of "Bang!" I am fortunate enough to have Breen occasionally call Knicks games and wrestle with Clyde Frazier's poetry. Breen guided us through MELO62 as professionally as possible while sitting next to a man who has worn a cow print suit to work. But a level headed approach to the type of history MELO62 made cannot be held for long.  

Mike Breen wanting nothing to do with his colleague and PETA nemesis Walt Frazier.

In sports there is always a victim. An entity is always on the other side of a great catch, a violent dunk, a homerun, or a physics defying goal. MELO62, which is at this point considered a weapon grade version of the athlete formerly known as Carmelo Anthony, victimized the Charlotte Bobcats. Steve Clifford, the Bobcats head coach, sacrificed a couple of defenders to the pyre that was MELO62's aura and was actually attempting to stop the myth from having its way with ball and hoop. All attempts proved futile. History, the Bobcats, Carmelo Anthony and Madison Square Garden were scarred forever.

Depiction of the Charlotte Bobcats during MELO62.

In the late 19th century the Latin American nations of Chile, Peru and Bolivia went to war over territories rich in minerals, one of which was guano (bird droppings). That sounds like a great premise for a post-apocalyptic science fiction story, but guano was considered some of the best fertilizer at the time. Yes, a war over bird droppings happened and is remembered now as a somewhat comical side story along the thread of human history. MELO62 is a strange occurrence that punctuates a season that will stand out not because of Anthony's performance against the Bobcats, but because it was a meltdown. The two will get tangled and MELO62 will be a short lived interlude of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy season. Some have already tried to prematurely assess it as a comical side story to a comical season that victimized a comical team in a comical conference, thus nullifying it through jest.

But we are aware that history is memory recorded in a many times biased way, and that most people have deep biases on the subjects of New York and the Knicks. This inconsistent writer and fan was reeled back in to the promise of sure disappointment by the memory of what it felt like to care about this team. That is the definition of a bandwagon commuter, but MELO62 overrides a historically bad stretch of months by creating a longer lasting and more positive historic accomplishment: something that you want to, or cannot forgo (like the Bobcats), being a part of.

- Alex Moran (@MoonbeanMarcos)