ON THE PARQUET WITH LARRY BIRD

Playing sports has been a huge part of my life. I was so bad at academics, but good at sports, which gave me a feeling of success—although I was the slowest fucking kid in the class, which was always so embarrassing. I could punt, pass, kick, shoot, and throw better than anyone, but anytime we had to run fast and jump high, I literally came in last, beaten not only by all of the girls (humiliating!) but also by Fat Petey (as we horribly called him) and Charlie Aquista, who I believe had braces on his legs. In kickball, I could kick the shit out of the ball, over the outfielders’ heads (even though they played deep when Stern came up), but I was lucky if I could make it to second base by the time they retrieved the ball from where the girls were playing Four Square and get it back to our game. I am talking slow.

In junior high and high school, I started to love basketball. We mostly played half-court, so running was not a big part of the game. My jumping abilities were pathetic, but I was already taller than almost everyone so I could rebound well, my passing skills were excellent, and I could hit from outside with uncanny accuracy. When I got to New York, I played in some tough games on the playgrounds and in a league at the YMCA, and in LA played almost every day in very intense games at the gym in Cheviot Hills Park, across the street from 20th Century Fox. Anyway, I love playing basketball!

So I was over the moon when I got the job for Celtic Pride, a movie about two crazy fans, played by me and the legendary Dan Aykroyd, who are diehard Celtic fans and who kidnap the opposing team’s best player, played by also-legendary Damon Wayans, to help the team win the championship. The best part was that the movie was going to be shooting the basketball scenes at the Boston Garden. My experience of being at the last game there sealed my love for that building and the history of that team, and the stars aligning so that I was going to go back and shoot a movie there, with Dan Fucking Ackroyd, playing a character that lives and dies for the Celtics, was mind-blowing. Not only that, to get Damon to look like the best basketball player in the NBA, the producers held a month of professional basketball training camp, first in LA and then in Boston. Even though I had no basketball-playing scenes, I talked my way into being part of the practices with the professional basketball players, which was humbling, to say the least. Damon had all the pressure on him to get into tip-top shape, and he did, but I could come and go as I wanted. I was playing an out-of-shape gym teacher and had the perfect excuse to skip the tough parts of the workout and go have a hoagie or two.

Truthfully, I don’t remember too much about the actual movie, and to this day I have never seen it. It was Judd Apatow’s first script, and it was really funny, but life off-screen was so incredible that making the movie was the least interesting part of the experience.

I had a huge, two-bedroom suite with an enormous living room on the thirtieth floor of a fancy downtown Boston hotel. Laure and the kids came to visit, and even my parents stayed with me for a couple of days. I got Mike Casey, the coach’s kid who got me a ticket to the final game, a job as a production assistant on the set. Mike became a great friend and, boy, did he know how to have fun in Boston. We went to bars, sporting events, and great restaurants. One of his friends owned a pizza parlor and we would go there after getting really drunk and make pizzas. So fun! But getting to run around with Dan Aykroyd was like being in the presence of a High Priest of Partying. Dan arrived in Boston from LA by train. Not a regular train; Dan had been loaned a private train car by someone rich and famous (maybe the owner of Rolling Stone magazine?) and had it attached to Amtrak trains that took him across the country. When he arrived in Boston, he had the train parked at the rail depot behind Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he lived there while we shot the movie. The first time I met him was on his beautiful, old-fashioned-feeling train car—carpeted walls, wood paneling, a bar, private bedrooms, and a porch off the back to watch America go past you, backwards. We drank and smoked cigars and got really fucking high. I loved him from the first minute I met him. Dan owned part of a nightclub in Boston, the China Club, and put me on the list where I could go in any time and have a table and free drinks. Crazy disco blasting, beautiful people all around me dancing their asses off, and unlimited drink and food. But Dan never went. The only time I was there with him was when he invited a bunch of the cast and crew to all go together. But instead of joining his guests, Dan had a walkie-talkie and acted as security for all of us. He didn’t have a drink or dance, just kept on his walkie, taking us through the secret back channels of the club and into crazy, private rooms. Goddamn, that was wild!

Laure came to visit for our anniversary, and Dan found out what restaurant we were going to and set it up so that Laure and I had a private room there, with a twenty-course meal, matching wines, and romantic music. We stayed there for four hours having dinner and, of course, Dan picked up the bill. Crazy generous man. We got a break in the filming to go home for Christmas, and Dan and I had to try to make it from the set to the Boston airport, known for its horrible traffic, at rush hour on the busiest travel day of the year. Dan had his motorcycle brought to the set, a motorcycle, he was proud to tell me, that was an officially decommissioned police motorcycle, the kind with the windshield. I hopped on the back of the bike and Dan whipped through traffic like a fucking stunt driver, weaving in and out of tight spaces and tilting it at extreme angles until we arrived at the tunnel at Boston Harbor, where traffic was just too clogged for even Dan to penetrate. Time was running out for us to make the plane, but have no fear, Dan had it handled. You see, he had arranged for a boat to meet us wherever the hell we were on the side of the highway. One person got out of the boat and took the motorcycle from Dan, we got into the boat, zoomed across the harbor and right to the airport, where a car met us and took us right to the terminal. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (and Motorcycles and Boats) in real life!! Dan is a one-of-a-kind person, a friend and a hero.

Unfortunately for the film, the director was the wrong man for the job. Not only was he inexperienced and a bit intimidated, but he had absolutely no understanding of basketball. (And the whole movie is about basketball!) I knew we were in trouble when I saw him on the court one day at rehearsal trying to take a shot. He looked like Jim Carrey attempting to make the worst basketball shot ever. Steven Hawking had a better chance of hitting the backboard. He didn’t even know the rules of the game, let alone the rules of how to film the game. Having just directed a sports movie, I knew how many individual shots you need to make a sports sequence feel real and exciting—hand on ball, following the passes, geography, defenders’ POV, clock ticking, etc. But the director only spent a few days filming the basketball sequences, which was a waste of the talent and effort that had gone into staging the games to look authentic. Instead, he spent weeks filming Dan and me in the crowd, being super fans, as well as other crowd stuff. I had a blast improvising with Dan and acting like insane fans, so I hope there is funny stuff in the movie (like I said, I haven’t seen the film). But I am pretty sure the basketball sequences are underwhelming.

The film had a lot of cameo appearances by the legends of the Celtics. The same giants I had watched take their curtain call at that Final Game at The Garden just few months ago—John Havlicek, Bob Cousy, Kevin McHale, and Red Auerbach—I was now standing next to, doing scenes with, and listening to their stories and jokes. These were incredible athletes I had looked up to my whole life. But the legend of legends was Larry Bird. He was a competitor like no other, an athlete who used every ounce of talent he had and knew how to win. People have called me Bird throughout my life—some because I looked a little bit like him, some because I played basketball a little bit like him, and some because they thought I looked like Big Bird. I had narrated a documentary about him, learning a lot about what a hard, hard life he led, which only made me admire him more. So the day Larry Bird came to the set to act in a scene with me and Dan, I was as star-struck as I have ever been. He was a reserved person, but I used every ounce of charm and humor I could muster, and he warmed up. I have a photo of us laughing together that I cherish not only because I revere him but also because I got him to laugh, which isn’t easy. When the crew broke for lunch, I watched as Larry got his tray of food and went back to his camper. I made the bold move of knocking on his door and asking him if he wanted to have company for lunch and, to my utter disbelief, he said yes. So Larry Bird and I sat at the little table in that Winnebago having lunch together, just the two of us. I literally cannot remember anything we talked about because it was such a near-holy experience, being that close to a true legend. I just hope I wasn’t drooling.

When the parquet was not being used for filming, I went down on the floor and played basketball during the breaks. So many great players were just standing around, and I got to shoot around with them for hours. And because I was playing all of the time, I started to really feel at home on that court and impress some of the players with my long-range shooting abilities. This led to what is truly one of the greatest days of my life, right up there with becoming a father and my wedding day. One of the technical advisors on the film was an incredible player named Gus Williams, an All-Star during his twelve-year career as point guard, who I loved when he played for my hometown team, the Washington Bullets. Gus was a great guy and an amazing shooter, and we had had fun hanging out on the court while the director was off making whatever movie he was making. On this magical day, I challenged Gus to a game of H-O-R-S-E (maybe there was a small bet on it, but I don’t remember). We were both really in a groove that day, and we played a fierce game with the whole crew watching. We hit half-court shots and behind-the-backboard shots, and then the other guy matched that incredible shot with another. But in the end, I beat him. I couldn’t believe it—and he couldn’t either. He said, “Let’s play again,” and we went right back at it. Again, magical shot followed by identical magical shot—and the game lasted a long time. We stopped to shoot a scene and then came back during breaks. This time, Gus won. We had to go back to filming at some point, but we met on the court for one last game to determine the real winner. The crew was heavily invested, cheering us both on. I wanted to win really badly, but Gus had much more pressure on him—an NBA great being beaten by an actor is not something he wanted to have happen on the floor of the Boston Garden. But it did. I beat him in that final game. Truly the greatest sporting achievement of my life. Gus was a little pissed, but his begrudging acceptance of how good my shot had gotten is one of the greatest compliments a man could ever receive. Celtic Pride was an experience of a lifetime, if not the movie of a lifetime. It is still hard to believe it all really happened.

The movie finally finished, and I went home. I had been away for three months—three months of my marriage and my kid’s lives that I couldn’t get back, and once again I had to catch up with everyone and everything that was going on. Life went on without me. Even though I was having these amazing experiences, I was the one missing out on the good stuff, not them. No matter how much fun I had on the film, it didn’t compare with living the messy, joyous life Laure and I had built at home. My paycheck from Celtic Pride put me over my goal of saving enough money that we could live off the interest. If I played my cards right and was smart, I would never have to take another job for money again. So it was time to put my money where my mouth was. It was time to stop working for a while and just be home.