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Naz Reid, Romance, and Regret
Naz Reid is a bench player for the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. He averaged 13 points a game last year, in a breakout campaign (for him) that saw him win Sixth Man of the Year, the league award for the best player who did not start. He’s a cog on the Timberwolves, not a star, and such players often become celebrated among the most dedicated fans. I can remember Yankees fans endlessly reposting the infamous “Log Cabin Copypasta” about Luke Voit, or cops from The Wire wanting to have sex with the Baltimore Orioles backup catcher. The backup, the role player, never has the expectations attached to the star free agent signing or the first round pick you build around, the guys you need to produce to justify the value invested. An Undrafted Free Agent like Naz Reid is a free bonus in terms of roster construction for the Timberwolves, and fans can appreciate him in an uncomplicated way without risk of disappointment, where KAT will never quite live up to expectations even when he’s a star. Naz Reid has become a mascot for fans of the Timberwolves, with fans online and in person greeting each other and commenting on events by simply nodding and saying “Naz Reid."
Two weeks ago, the WSJ recorded the height of Naz Reid hysteria reporting on a tattoo studio that offered to tattoo Naz Reid on any takers for $20. As of press time, 156 Minnesotans had taken him up on the offer. That was before a huge 7 game series win over reigning champions Denver and their MVP winning center. I’d imagine there have been many more, but I can’t find a count anywhere.
In light of this post from last Sunday and these excellent replies, I thought more about Naz Reid and the idea of tattoos, and life and love and the friends we make along the way.
Let’s make our learned friend Harold’s argument a little more concrete: Will the hundreds of Minnesota Timberwolves fans who get this tattoo regret it?
The Naz Reid story on the Timberwolves is likely to end in disappointment. The Wolves are down 3-1, having barely avoided a sweep on Tuesday, but I’d still put odds on the series ending in a Gentleman’s Sweep with the Mavericks coming into Game 5 as heavy favorites. Wolves fans are probably going to be commemorating a season that ends with a memorable failure to finish. Regardless of the outcome of this season, much more likely than not, Naz Reid will not lift a trophy to end the season. He’s also unlikely to be a contributor on the Timberwolves in a few years, in today’s whirligig world of NBA roster construction. If he’s good enough to start, he’s likely to get traded in deference to KAT and Goebert. If he’s not good enough to start, he might not be in the NBA at all not long from now. Die hard Minnesota fans might find themselves with a tattoo naming a player on the Bucks or the Sixers.
This is all so obvious, why have hundreds of midwesterners decided to drop $20 for a permanent memorial to a moment so fleeting?
My first boxing coach was a former tattoo artist. He never managed to convince me to get one as a teenager, his own art was mostly pretty terrible to be honest, but he told stories about it while we jumped rope. He was a big fan of skipping rope. One of the things he told me was that when people came in to get a tattoo for their boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/fuckbuddy/lover, he would try to make sure they wouldn’t regret it, because no tattoo artist wants his victim to hate that tattoo, and they prefer to get repeat business. Coach would sit the guy down and say “Will you be happy with this tattoo if she dumps you? If you won’t be happy with it if she dumps you, you shouldn’t get the tattoo.” “But why would I ever be happy with the tattoo if she dumped me?” “I have tattoos I got with old girlfriends, and I love the designs, and they remind me of that time in my life, even if I don’t talk to her anymore I remember as she was then, and how she changed me. That remains a part of my life and the tattoo honors that.”* ((Avoiding tattoo regret about any particular tattoo is probably easier when you have truly terrible tattoos, like a purple cat in a bowler hat smoking a cigar, all over your body, as Coach did))
This is why you get a Naz Reid tattoo, or any tattoo, and why you don’t. The glass is already broken. The Wolves already lost, in heartbreaking fashion. Naz Reid has already torn his ACL and washed out of the league, or been traded to a rival team. The girl has already dumped you and moved on to someone else, or she’s stayed with you and you’ve both changed and she’s not the same girl anymore. You are already old and saggy. The trend is already out of fashion and lame and decades out of date. You enjoy it because of the moment it represents, not because what it represents is eternal and unchanging. Tattoos at their best aren’t permanent commitments, commitments that we must as flawed humans fail and break, they are permanent reminders of who you were, of the time in your life when you got it.
If you can’t stand the idea that a tattoo might one day seem out of date, that your body will be different and ruin the lines of the tattoo, that you aren’t so in love with the reason you got it, you shouldn’t get it. If you can’t destroy it, or stand to see it destroyed, you don’t own it, it owns you. I’ve tried to make this a motto of my life when it comes to material possessions. My father has a hobby of estate auctions, and I’ve been going to them to pick up his finds since I was a teenager. The amount of times I’ve seen fine china sets, service for 12, come up for auction never used. No utensil marks on them, none. Many of them were Wedding gifts, the couple’s “China Pattern,” purchased for them by wedding guests at exorbitant prices, but never eaten from. The happy couple received thousands of dollars in china, but it was never the right occasion to use it, never the moment when they were willing to risk marring their perfection, never the guests who would take care of it, the kids were too young and might break it, or the wife is too old to bother hand-washing all those place settings, and then they divorce or downsize or die, and they or their children sell it off for 2-10% of the original cost. They’d have been better off using it every day, throwing it in the dishwasher even if it wasn’t “dishwasher safe” and it ruined the gilding, breaking the crystal glasses at raucous parties late in the night. The dishes are already broken, if you save them you just guarantee they won’t be broken by you. You, or corporations selling you something might lie to yourself and say you’re maintaining it for your kids, but in reality they’ll probably auction all your crap off if its worth the effort and throw it away if it isn’t.
I’ve tried to make this part of my life. If I can’t destroy it I don’t own it. If I don’t own it, I don’t want to pretend I do. I don’t own shoes or clothing that I feel the need to baby. Not that I’ll wear my best gray suit and suede loafers to work in the garden, but I avoid wearing clothing that I’ll be precious with, that I’ll turn down any activity while wearing. If someone wants to throw a frisbee around, I might take off my jacket and tuck my tie into the buttons of my shirt, but I can do it. I’ve eliminated leather soles in favor of thin rubber soles, they may be less perfectly formal but I prefer to wear them in wet weather or on dirt without thinking too much. I don’t buy anything so expensive that I can’t stand the idea of wearing it out, that the idea of it being stained or torn upsets me. I buy almost exclusively second hand furniture. Protecting your furniture is inherently lame. I want my furniture to already have enough nicks and scratches that the ones I add are no big deal. Within reason, I never want to tell people to be careful with my things. I listened to the guy from ICON Motors on Rogan years back, and one anecdote he told about a friend stuck with me: he would customize a perfect classic muscle car, and just when he was finished he would find a spot on the back and key it. There, now it’s not perfect, I can drive it. Pick ye rosebuds while ye may, enjoy life, don’t save it for the next guy, go to God with nothing and say “I used everything you gave me.”
I’ve had many girls** tell me they think tattoos were hot on guys ((they didn’t manage to convince me to get one either)). Even taking the point that it will look stupid when I’m old, it would have made sense to get a tattoo at 19 if a significant portion of girls agree with that. Let’s posit, as utilitarians, fake numbers: if a tattoo adds 2 points on the 1-10 scale at 19, but takes away 3 points later when you’re 45, you’re probably better off having gotten them, even if at 45 you regret them. Time weighted, the 2 points when you’re 19 are worth more than the 3 points at 45, if things go well you shouldn’t be dating at 45 at all anyway. At 45 you should be married, and look at the tattoos you got at 19 to impress girls, and think of the girls you knew and the friends you had back then, and smile at the memory. If that idea is foreign to you, you shouldn’t get the tattoo.
To bring this back around, Naz Reid. If a Timberwolves fan got a Naz Reid tattoo thinking they were gonna win the championship, and that Naz Reid is going to play in Minnesota for years to come, he is going to regret that tattoo. But a wiser Timberwolves fan, one who gets the tattoo not to commemorate the championship they probably won’t win or the career that Naz Reid probably won’t have, but to remember that one shining spring and how excited he and his friends were getting drunk at the game, he will not regret it.
That’s how you justify getting a tattoo. You own your body, if you can’t destroy it, you don’t own it. So do it, if you can justify it in the end.
*Yes, I’m making his words significantly clearer and less profane. I only really remember the gist of the story anyway.
**While I expect many to dismiss this point, I’m going to state baldly that at least some of these were High Quality Girls with Ivy League degrees and good character, who have gone on to have good careers and/or make fine wives, though I expect some will No True Scotsman that assertion.
I disagree viscerally, but this was very pleasant to read, thank you for making the effort to write and share it
Which part do you disagree with? In what way?
I'm not sure I agree with all of it, I have no tattoos. Though I can't stand the idea of owning sneakers that can't get dirty.
I have a sort-of nuanced view of this. I try to keep my nice things nice, but if they suffer wear in the course of fulfilling their purpose, that is fine, or even ideal.
Eg. I like the fading scar on my right wrist that reminds me of getting swept onto some rocks on a beach in Costa Rica. That was a good time. I dislike the fading scar on my left arm where I carelessly walked into the side of a cabinet when I was tired at work one day. That was stupid. My car looks good (to me) with some nicks and scratches from difficult mountain roads, but I hate the key mark on the side from some asshole in the alley where I park.
At some level though, those things are the same, in that over time the odds add up that some asshole keys your car, or backs into you in a parking lot, or loses his loaded shopping cart at Home Depot and crashes it into your car, or you get caught in a sudden hailstorm, or any number of other mishaps, over time those odds approach 1. The only way to fully prevent those things is to never leave the garage for too long.
Now, given, I park at the back of the parking lot every time, both to reduce the odds of mishaps and out of a sense that I have fewer problems and inconveniences compared to most people so I'd rather walk further.
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